disillusioned with academic life, addy quick just wants to finish graduate school and get on with doing important things. when she moves back home for the summer to finish her dissertation, she realizes that living with her anxious mother (and her constant refrain of "what will people think") is not going to be easy. surrounded by the daily dramas of her parents, her sister lacey, and lacey's girlfriend asia, it becomes increasingly difficult for addy to focus. but it's a letter in her grandmother's papers that really gets her off track: her great-aunt was fired from the historic biltmore house on new year's day, 1925. when addy starts investigating, she stumbles across a deeply-buried family secret and discovers just how much what people will think really matters to her mother. squeezed between her mother's obsession with social status and the demands of her academic life, addy uncovers more questions than answers while struggling to meet an impossible deadline as her picture perfect future moves further out of reach. is it worth risking her relationship with her mother to get a degree that won't really make the world a better place anyway? is this all there is?