"Alvie Fitz doesn't fit in, and she doesn't care. She's spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she'll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she'll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home"--Jacket.

Alvie Fitz has spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she'll be legally emancipated. Her only friend is Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works. Then she meet Stanley, who walks with a cane, whose body seems as fragile as glass. Without meaning to, they start getting close. Does Alvie have a chance at happiness, after all?