Billie is a 16-year-old girl growing up in the 1940s, whose family struggles to understand what family is supposed to mean. She turns to her books and her friend Jeanie for comfort and solace and wishes she could live in any world more fictional than her own. When she starts to uncover some more difficult truths about the state of her family's dysfunction, she wonders whether or not family is even worth the effort of trying to connect with.