Mara has a cruel and loveless childhood living on a farm with her parents in the rural town of Ranches. She turns to her journal and reads works of literature in an attempt to escape from an alcoholic father and a psychotic mother; erasing the lines between imagination and actuality. When Mara witnesses the murder of her father, she decides to flee.

In a far away motel, Mara meets a young man. He forces her to face the dangerous truths of her past and the unknown beauties of her future. But she falls deeper into madness. Mara follows an unreliable narrator as she searches for self-reconciliation.