Seventeen-year-old Gemma\'s favorite kind of beach is an empty one. Social interactions are too much for her to handle. She\r\nalways says the wrong thing-if she manages to say anything at all. She can\'t even bring herself to speak to her longtime crush,\r\nBeau Booker, without losing sleep over her own awkwardness.\r\nDuring a solo outing to her favorite beach, Gemma realizes-to her horror-that the popular kids from school have shown up to\r\nthrow a party. Before she can sneak away (and possibly puke behind her car) Gemma is pulled into the action and ends up talking\r\nto Beau, who asks her to pretend that they\'re \"close.\" Gemma is too flustered and flattered to refuse, and mostly, she\'s wondering\r\nwhy Beau is talking to her at all . . . right up until the moment when he falls off the boat, hits his head, and ends up in a coma.\r\nAfter rescuing Beau from the water, Gemma is mistaken for Beau\'s girlfriend by his friends and family, including his mysterious\r\nolder brother, Griff, who has returned to town after a year away. Gemma tries to correct the record, but her social anxiety (and\r\na nosy reporter) gets in the way at every turn. Before she knows it, she\'s in too deep to backtrack. And when Beau\'s warm,\r\nboisterous family pulls Gemma into their orbit, she realizes how much she wants to keep them in her life.\r\nFor the first time, Gemma has everything she\'s ever wanted: friends, big family dinners, and Griff-a boy who she can be herself\r\naround. But how can she embrace her new dream life when everything is built on a lie?
The average person makes 35,000 decisions every single day. That's about 34,999 too many for Paige Collins, who lives in debilitating fear of making the wrong choice. The simple act of picking an art elective is enough to send her into a spiral of whatifs. What if she's destined to be a famous ceramicist but wastes her talent in drama club? What if there's a carbon monoxide leak in the ceramics studio and everyone drops dead? (Grim, but possible!)
That's why when Paige is presented with two last-minute options for Christmas vacation, she's paralyzed by indecision. Should she go with her best friend (and longtime crush) Fitz to his family's romantic mountain cabin? Or should she accompany her mom to New York, a city Paige has spent her whole life dreaming about?
Just when it seems like Paige will crack from the pressure of choosing, fate steps in -- in the form of a slippery grocery store floor -- and Paige's life splits into two very different parallel paths. One path leads to New York where Paige falls for the city . . . and the charms of her unexpected tour guide. The other leads to the mountains where Paige might finally get her chance with Fitz . . . until her anxiety threatens to ruin everything
