Growing up in a family far from the traditional idea of upbringing, Jeannette Walls knows better than anyone what it’s like to live in a world where you have to suffer from your own parents’ capriciousness and instability.
Twelve-year-old Bean Holliday and her fifteen-year-old sister Liz find themselves in a difficult situation: their irresponsible mother, trying to build a career as a singer, has a nervous breakdown and leaves for an unspecified time. To avoid ending up in an orphanage, the girls go to the only relative they have—in Virginia. They begin to get used to their new, relatively calm life, but, unfortunately, they still have another test ahead—perhaps more frightening than all the previous ones.