Liz Lighty has always done her best to avoid the spotlight in her small,wealthyand prom-obsessed midwestern high schoolafter allher family is black and rather poorespecially since her mother died; instead she has concentrated on her grades and her musical ability in the hopes that it will win her a scholarship to elite Pennington College and their famous orchestra where she plans to study medicine–but when that scholarship falls through she is forced to turn to her school’s scholarship for prom king and queenwhich plunges her into the gauntlet of social media which she hates and leads her to discoveries about her own identity and the value of true friendships.