Marisol Guzman from Hard Love is older and wiser. She has graduated from high school and deferred Stanford for a year so she can pursue her newest dream, writing a novel. She has taken an apartment in Somerville with her best friend Birdie, a waitressing job at the legendary Mug in Cambridge, and signed up for "How To Write Your First Novel" at the adult learning annex.

But on the first day, she isn't sure what is a bigger suprise, that Gio is in her class or that it is being taught by Olivia Frost, the most beautiful, intelligent woman she has ever laid eyes on. Between that; Birdie bringing home his new boyfriend (who is equally afraid of Marisol and the cat) to live with them; and Lee, a high school senior who has fallen head over heels for Marisol, she can hardly keep things straight. Especially once she herself falls into her first real relationship with the twenty-eight year old Olivia.

As Marisol becomes more and more involved with Olivia, she begins to wonder if she is too blinded by love to see the truth.

The follow-up to the Printz Honor Book "Hard Love" finds Marisol Guzman older and wiser. As she weaves her way through a complicated fabric of relationships and becomes deeply involved with her writing class teacher, she discovers the blinding power of love.

"The emotional morass of Marisol's life...is complex and realistic; it will draw in both fans of the earlier novel...and realistic-fiction readers seeking a love story with depth."--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books