Omar has known Martha since childhood, but when she returns to their east Dallas neighbourhood to finish high school after two years away, he barely recognises her. She's still the defiant, overachieving girl he knew − though now in a body that every guy, including Omar, notices.

But Martha has set her heart on college, and she won't allow the leering eyes, or a growing friendship with Omar, to derail her. As she faces down obstacle after obstacle, we encounter the women who preceded her: her mother, Mariana, a light-skinned beauty who's been searching for a Prince Charming all her life; her silenced grandmother, Imelda, whom she never had the chance to know; and her great-grandmother, Ana, a revolutionary who rode with Pancho Villa, only to meet a violent end. The more Martha learns about the history that shaped them, and the closer she and Omar become, the more clearly she sees that someone like her was never going to be allowed to simply make a life on her own terms.