Sometimes Art Can't Save You

Jessica Vandermeyer is a too-tall, underdeveloped teen. She has a father she's never met, a stepfather who killed himself and a Spandex-wearing, oversexed mother whose new ex-Special Forces boyfriend, Jim, moved them from Wisconsin to Los Angeles. Over the course of one summer, Jess finds love but she also has nightmares of snakes, battered doves, and hairy hands that look like Jim's. She throws herself into creating art, morphing with her paintings in her struggle to survive in her often-chaotic, confusing world.