At age 22, Shannon writes to her deceased older sister Nikki, whose untimely death is followed by the gradual demise of their drug dealer mother. Throughout the story, she recounts her days of having to fend for her three remaining siblings and herself in her affluent Cleveland suburb during her senior year in high school. In this memoir penned to Nikki, Shannon spins a coming of age chronicle of her unraveling life as she navigates precariously into adulthood, traveling across the United States while attending three different colleges in four years. In her search for peace and stability, Shannon is plagued by death, drugs, financial constraints, and fluctuating social and ethnic settings, but she emerges from her unconventional and intriguing past to a confident and liberated young woman.