An adored only child, Annie has until recently lived an idyllic life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful presence at the very center of the little girl's existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother's benign shadow. Looking back on her childhood, she reflects, "It was in such a paradise that I lived". When she turns 12, however, Annie's life changes in ways that are often mysterious to her.

In Almost a Woman, Esmeralda Santiago continues narrating her memoirs, which pick up five years after debut When I Was Puerto Rican left off. In this volume, “Negi” tells the listener all about her teenage years amidst the turbulent mid-'60s. In a small Brooklyn apartment, Negi leaves her childhood behind and starts to become a woman. But she’s still surrounded by 10 siblings and a mother who relies heavily on her on account of her being the eldest.

Giselle Boyer and her identical twin, Isabelle, are as close as sisters can be, even as their family seems to be unraveling. Then the Boyers are caught in a car crash that will shatter everyone's world forever. Giselle wakes up in the hospital, injured and unable to speak or move. Trapped in the prison of her own body, Giselle must revisit her past in order to understand how the people closest to her - her friends; her parents; and above all Isabelle, her twin - have shaped and defined her. Will she allow her love for her family and friends to lead her to recovery?

Felicia and Edgar meet as their mothers are dying. Felicia, a teen from an island nation, and Edgar, the lazy heir of a wealthy German family, come together only because their mothers share a hospital room. When Felicia's mother dies and Edgar's "Mutter" does not, Felicia drops out of high school and takes a job as Mutter's caregiver. While Felicia and Edgar don't quite understand each other, and Felicia recognizes that Edgar is selfish, arrogant, and often unkind, they form a bond built on grief (and proximity)....