Nothing exciting goes on in Hanersville, Alabama, but the summer before Jazzman’s ninth-grade year becomes more than sleepovers, group texts, and going to the Rink with her best friends, Sheba and Samantha. Naïve and sassy Jazzman meets sixteen-year-old Cedric at an end-of-the-school-year skating party and his smile sparks a light within Jazzman that she didn’t know she had; his swagger is intoxicating. None of the boys at [Hanersville Middle] are as fine and charismatic as Cedric. And while Jazzman never thought she would lie about her age, she tells him she attends [Ridgeland High] and gives him her number. Jazzman and her besties can’t wait for his text or call; however, an older boy talking to a younger girl smells trouble.
Though Jazzman has vowed to never let anything or anyone break up her sister-friendship with her besties, that begins to change as her relationship with Cedric becomes more intimate—and more controlling. One day, while volunteering with her granny at a domestic shelter, Jazzman learns the true reason she lives with her overbearing, judgmental grandmother: Her teenaged mother couldn’t stand the sight of her and abandoned her when she was just a baby. Heartbroken and unable to fathom why Granny lied to her about this, it isn’t long until Jazzman starts lying to her granny and friends and sneaking out of the house to be with the one person she believes truly loves her.
Through uncomfortable sexual encounters that results in a pregnancy, mental and physical abuse, isolation, and gang wars, Jazzman is forced to grow up far too quickly. It’s not long before Cedric reveals his true motives and outlook on women and life. But she blatantly disregards her friends’ concerns and their repeated advice to leave the relationship, and Granny’s religious beliefs and refusal to face family secrets leave her blinded to questionable decisions. Jazzman’s life will never be the same, as she learns to forgive the mother who abandoned her, while drawing strength from her granny, her besties, and more importantly, from herself.