Southern Appalachia. He was born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Damon braves the perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes...

Twenty years after they grew up in a public housing complex in mulicultural Northwest London, Natalie and Leah hardly recognize each other. Catapulted out of urban poverty by ambition and hard work, Natalie has won the success she craves, while Leah stayed close to friends and family, cherishing her working-class life. Can the women's friendship survive a looming crisis in the complex world beteween fortune and failure, culture and class?

"Twelve-year-old Ivy Aberdeen's house is destroyed in a tornado, and in the aftermath of the storm, she begins to develop feelings for another girl at school"--