Content Warning: This section discusses domestic abuse.

Gavin longs to play football but can’t because his family has fallen on hard financial times. The biggest lesson he’s learned from his dad is that things need to get uglier before they get better. As examples, he offers bruises getting darker before healing, needing to cut open the ceiling to fix a leaky pipe, and newborn babies growing into adults. Gavin then counters this by saying, “[T]hat bruise and leaky pipe and baby stuff is simple compared to the kind of ugly that went down this year” (2).

Randi is a gymnast whose mom acts like an overbearing coach, pushing Randi to practice six days a week and place in the regional competition so that colleges will start paying attention. Though Randi’s been doing gymnastics for years and is good, she ends the chapter with the confession, “I used to love gymnastics” (4).

Natalie Kurtsman is a straight-A student who always toes the line, and her chapters are written as legal briefs because she aspires to be a lawyer like her parents. Natalie doesn’t understand how other people do the wrong things, as she believes that it is simple to think things through and make good choices.