Cosmopolitan and curious seventeen-year-old Chrysler Wong suffers from debilitating fear brought on by belief in a family curse, whereby she and her siblings will each die at age eighteen when they leave their small hometown. Three siblings have already died; the fourth, her favourite, has left town and is incommunicado. Chrysler is afraid of boys, love, sex, leaving town, and eating chicken that's a little pink in the centre. She's taken huge precautions to try to keep herself safe, and the possibilities of her life, as she sees it, are narrow, even though she's smart, curious, hopeful, and longing for more.