california, southern

When Southern California high school senior Sofi Mendoza lies to her parents and crosses the border for a weekend party, she has no idea that she will get stuck in a Mexican village with family she has never met before, unable to return to the United States and the easy life she knew.

Tommy Phan, a thirty-year-old Vietnamese-American detective novelist, is forced to run for his life when the odd rag doll he found lying on his doorstep turns into an indestructible reptilian creature with evil intent.

When the members of the Crime Scene Club visit Los Angeles, they become involved in an investigation into what appears to be the accidental death of a surfer.

As Bobby Framingham, quarterback of his high school football team, finally acknowledges to himself that he is gay, events start to spin out of control when his sexual orientation is revealed in the student newspaper and then in the local press, and he learns that his father has cancer.

Ella tries to give her handicapped daughter Lena a normal life, but when she discovers that Lena has a mind of her own, Ella must contend with letting her daughter go.