Yamanaka pens powerful novel of friendship, family, sexuality, and identity in which 13-year-old Emi-Lou struggles with coming of age and middle school in Hawaii. Emi-Lou feels like a nobody—she's overweight, her mom lives in faraway California and rarely visits or calls, and she doesn't know who her father is. The only people who make her feel like somebody are her brave, blunt grandma, and her best girlfriend, Von. "Where Von go, Louie-Louie go", their families and friends say. But now Emi-Lou fears that Von is going somewhere she can't follow. Yon has feelings for Babes, an older girl on their softball team. Emi-Lou wants desperately for Von to be "normal", for them to be the same best friends they've always been. What will Emi-Lou be without Von? Nobody, she thinks. But her desperate actions to hold on to her best friend just may break them.