This is a brief glimpse into a girls' private high school in Manhattan with an assortment of senior girls, each of whom carries her own particular set of problems and aspirations. There are also several teachers whose lives we view with candor. At the center is a classmate diagnosed with cancer, who is the pivotal point for the book. I didn't feel any particular connection to anyone in this book, and found the format difficult to follow initially. There were too many characters to keep straight given the brief insight into one before another was followed. I also had no real sense of Astra as a person, just as a cancer victim.