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This dark and moving novel is the sequel to Warsaw Spring.

Sixteen-year-old Naomi's best friend has moved away, and Naomi herself is starting at a new high school. Curtis, the artistic guy she likes, seems to be avoiding her, and she feels alone and lonely. Her dying aunt has come to live with them, and her mother seems to be on the verge of a breakdown. Her Polish father is absent and unsupportive.

On top of all these problems, her part-time job is awful and she is supposed to be doing boring and difficult schoolwork. How can Naomi overcome all these negatives in her life? Over three harrowing months on the eve of the new millennium the story emerges of a young woman finding strength and of a broken family mending. The action and circumstances of the book are laid bare in a series of diary entries, not only by Naomi, but by her boyfriend, her mother, her mother's boyfriend, and Naomi's employer, giving the reader a much fuller understanding of what brings Naomi and her mother to the brink of despair - and back.