In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

"Teens, especially those not in the uber-popular set, know all about feeling invisible. But what would happen if you actually did wake up invisible one day? Fifteen-year-old Bobby is faced with this curious predicament ... Doing his best to adapt, Bobby informs his parents and grows more and more frustrated as they try to control his (unseen) life. Attempting to take matters in his own hands, he ventures out--naked--to the library, where he meets...

Sixteen-year-old Quinn struggles to maintain her image as a brilliant, good girl when her mother's major error at work leads to financial and legal troubles that turn Quinn's and her younger sisters' world upside-down.

The author, a Rhodes scholar and combat veteran, analyzes factors that influenced him as well as another man of the same name and from the same neighborhood who was drawn into a life of drugs and crime and ended up serving life in prison, focusing on the influence of relatives, mentors, and social expectations that could have led either of them on different paths.

After practically burning down his last school, Spencer Pendleton wants to keep out of trouble at Greenfield Middle but between attacks from the school bully and being recruited by the mischievous tribe of dropouts hiding in the building, Spencer seems headed for permanent detention.