What makes a family. That is really the idea that is the seed of this tale by one of young adult literature's strongest writers.

Ruby Cooper has been living on her own for weeks after her alcoholic mother ran off and disappeared. In fact, no one would have noticed that she was taking care of herself until she started to fall behind on her utility bills. When the word gets out, her landlords contact social services, who place her with her older sister Cora.

Cora had gone off to college years later. She is now a successful family lawyer who is married to Jaime, the wealthy founder of UMe (a sight not unlike MySpace and Facebook). Ruby is less-than-thrilled with having to live with someone she had thought had abandoned her once an opportunity to escape had come along.

Jaime and Cora also enroll her in the local private school, where she feels totally out of place. Even with next-door neighbor Nick being overly nice and willing to show her around, Ruby continues to try and keep her distance from everyone around her. Ruby is able to talk her sister into letting her get a job at the local mall at a small jewelry kiosk.

As time passes, Ruby can't help but start to question her cynical view of the world. While her parents were by no means the dream family, they are replaced by the people she starts to get to know after moving in with Cora and Jaime. The quirky characters range from a quirky and brutally honest little genius to a pair of vendors she works with at the mall.

Dessen's strength has always been in building strong, well-developed characters. They are always confronted with challenges today's kid deal with. This time it is the feelings that come with long term abandonment issues as well as parental abuse. In its place, though, the readers get a chance to see that there really is hope ... and people who can step in to help. There really is more to family than just genes.