Set in a high school community over the course of a single day, each chapter of this novel is told from the point of view of a different individual, most of them students, one a recent graduate, one a first-year English teacher. At some point, each of them is either on the giving or receiving end of “The Finger.” A gesture that looks and feels incredibly impulsive and rude when on the receiving end becomes surprisingly weighted and nuanced when the context behind it is revealed. Readers are privy to what the person being flipped off is not: the frustration, humiliation, fear, or despair that the individual flipping them off experienced in minutes, hours, or even days leading up it. Sometimes it’s even a lifetime of pain as a story reveals challenging or dysfunctional family dynamics. Unexpected moments of connection and tenderness are also on display. The well-drawn characters are a mix of types—jock, cheerleader, slacker, and loner—each one proving to be more than what they seem when the person behind the label is even briefly revealed. While characters appear in multiple stories—sometimes as the protagonist, sometimes in the background—the stories are not directly overlapping or perfectly tied up. Neither high school nor life is that neat. (Age 14 and older)

Does anyone ever see us for who we really are? Jo Knowles’s revelatory novel of interlocking stories peers behind the scrim as it follows nine teens and one teacher through a seemingly ordinary day.

Thanks to a bully in gym class, unpopular Nate suffers a broken finger—the middle one, splinted to flip off the world. It won’t be the last time a middle finger is raised on this day. Dreamer Claire envisions herself sitting in an artsy café, filling a journal, but fate has other plans. One cheerleader dates a closeted basketball star; another questions just how, as a “big girl,” she fits in. A group of boys scam drivers for beer money without remorse—or so it seems. Over the course of a single day, these voices and others speak loud and clear about the complex dance that is life in a small town. They resonate in a gritty and unflinching portrayal of a day like any other, with ordinary traumas, heartbreak, and revenge. But on any given day, the line where presentation and perception meet is a tenuous one, so hard to discern. Unless, of course, one looks a little closer—and reads between the lines.