Salter, Sydney

Thirteen-year-old Kat wants to be at "mini-camp" with classmates rather than touring the jungles near Cancun, Mexico, on a family vacation, but a story told by one of her Mayan guides helps her understand that by always trying to please her friends, she is losing herself.

In Reno, Nevada, seventeen-year-old Jory Michaels is self-conscious because she does not fit in with her "beautiful" family, so while her two best friends plan on a summer spent discovering their passions before their senior year of high school, she gets a job and saves money for plastic surgery.

Polly Martin decides to swear off boys for the summer after a junior year full of dating disasters and is pleased when she learns her grandmother, an advice columnist, is moving in, but her resolve weakens when she meets skateboarder Xander Cooper, and her grandma is too busy trying to pick up men to offer much help.