On a bright summer evening in 1990s Connecticut, fourteen-year-old Emily Vidal stands on her parents' lawn, watching the adults arrive. Her mother is hosting a lavish birthday party for her father, even though he is about to leave her for another woman.

Adrift between her feuding parents and eccentric neighbours, Emily is closer than she knows to the choices and heartbreaks that will define her in the years ahead.

From the author of the million-copy international bestseller The Wedding People, this ruefully funny debut novel explores love, grief, consequences and the messy business of growing up.