A school like UC Santa Barbara should be a paradise. It's frat boys skipping class to surf three steps from their dorms. It's day-long ragers and girls in bikinis on a Monday. In the party town of Isla Vista, college years are meant to be reckless, inebriated, and untouchable, and everyone is trying to be something they're not.

In this coming-of-age memoir, Maya, a black queer writer running from a life of sexual repression, adulthood becomes an aimless journey through isolation and elitism in the deceiving glow of the Santa Barbara ocean. Fruitlessly, Maya searches for fulfillment through toxic love and academic success, until death complicates all she knows about her family and herself.

As her search for self takes her up and down the coast of California, Maya traces through her lineage to align her past with her present. She connects ideas of tokenism and black excellence, motherhood and perfectionism, and family and spirituality to find her way home.