Liz Murray is one of two daughters of an extremely dysfunctional Bronx family. Her father watches Jeopardy! and knows all the questions. Their bathtub does not drain, so she has to shower while standing on an overturned bucket, to stay out of the fetid water.
As a young girl, Murray lives with her sister Lisa, their drug-addicted, schizophrenic mother Jean, who has AIDS and is practically blind, and their father Peter, also a drug addict who is intelligent, but also has AIDS, lacks social skills, and is not conscientious. She is removed from the home and placed into the care system as her father cannot take care of her.
At 15, she moves in with her mother, sister, and grandfather, who sexually abused her mother and her aunt. After her grandfather hits her during a fight, Liz runs away with a girl from school named Chris who is being abused at home.
After Jean dies of AIDS, which she contracted from sharing needles during her drug-abusing years, Liz gets a "slap in the face" by her mother's death and begins her work to finish high school, which she amazingly completed in two years, rather than the usual four. She becomes a star student and earns a scholarship to Harvard University through an essay contest sponsored by The New York Times.
