Seventeen-year-old Luthando, adorkable, bookish, and forever drifting between reality and her vivid inner world, returns for another year at a prestigious South African all-girls’ boarding school. Behind its manicured lawns and bright, busy corridors, the school hides a deceptively conservative culture where reputation is everything, and nonconformity is quietly disciplined. As the lone scholarship girl, Luthando has learned to keep her head down, her marks up, and her mother’s strict expectations close to heart.
Her world tilts when Ayanda, a bold and effortlessly magnetic new student, arrives. Their connection sparks into something that Luthando has only ever daydreamed about. As they begin a secret romance, Luthando is ushered into Ayanda’s orbit of confident, carefree friends, tasting freedom she’s never experienced within the school’s rigid walls.