Perry Gonzalez is not like other kids in her Beverly Hills high school -- a full blooded Latina on a scholarship, living in a tiny apartment with her mother, she doesn't have much in common with the spoiled, privileged kids who are chauffeured to school every morning. But Perry is a young writer with her sights set on Bennington and her seven deadly stories are her ticket to the Ivory Tower. To pay her way, Perry's been babysitting (correction: teenage-sitting) and tutoring the neighborhood kids, and she has seen the dark side of adolescence: lust for the Judas Brothers that leads to electrocution at a private birthday party concert; wrath that inspires new and perverse family bonds; and greed, in a young Bernie Madoff acolyte who conceives of a copycat Ponzi scheme involving his own grandmother.