Awake in the world
(Book)

Zach's father dies on an oil rig and he thinks he is headed toward a similar fate until he meets Vanessa, an optimistic and wealthy girl who wants to study astronomy.

Off the coast of the small California town of Orilla del Cielo, the silhouettes of oil rigs loom. To Zach, they are a reminder of loss-- his father, an oil worker, drowned years earlier. With his family struggling to make ends meet, Zach feels he's destined for the same bleak future. Then he meets Vanessa, an optimistic girl from a wealthy family whose sights are literally set on the stars. Inspired by her idol, Carl Sagan, she plans on studying astronomy at Cornell. But as oil prospectors in search of black gold know, the future is uncertain... and fortunes can always be flipped. -- adapted from jacket