- When the book opens up, the main character, Mclean, is sitting at a subpar restaurant called Lunar Blu with her dad. Her dad is weirdly excited about ordering both calamari and guacamole and is in full-on dorky dad mode.
- Mclean tells her dad that this place totally has potential (even though the service sucks), and he tells her that she's awesome. His phone buzzes and she realizes that his girlfriend is texting him and probably doesn't realize that he's moved hundreds of miles away… again.
- Mclean's dad is basically the guy from Restaurant: Impossible—he goes from town to town and fixes up dead-end, struggling restaurants. Luna Blu is the latest notch on his belt.
- She's moved with her dad four times now, and each time she starts over completely, selecting a new name and crafting a new persona for herself—Liza, Eliza, Beth, etc.
- Like Sandra Dee remaking herself as bad girl Sandy in Grease, Mclean takes on different personalities and interests each time she moves. What will she be this time?
- Her real name—Mclean—is the name of the all-time best basketball coach at Defriese University, her parents' alma mater and her dad's favorite sports team. Growing up, she went to all the games and was raised as a die-hard fan, especially since their family still lived in Tyler, the college's town. Her dad owned a restaurant there called Mariposa Grill.
- Three years ago though, Mclean (the basketball coach) retired and was replaced by a new, handsome young coach named Peter Hamilton. And then Mclean's (the narrator) mom fell in love with Peter. Uh-oh.
- After that, Mclean's dad took a job as a restaurant fixer-upper and now she and her dad hit the road together and move from town to town as a team.
- They pull into their new house in Lakeview (the town where Luna Blu is located) and Mclean is pleased to see that it's cute and cozy. When she steps onto the back porch though, she freaks out because there's someone lying on the patio furniture cushions. What the—
- She jumps back inside, closing and locking the glass door. She can see that the person is a dude in jeans with long hair, and that he'd been reading a book. He mouths a sorry through the glass and then disappears over the fence to the house next door.
- She doesn't say anything to her dad when he enters the house, though. She's pretty sure that the guy is just someone who doesn't feel like being at home, and she feels oddly sympathetic.