Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
On the Road Again
The book opens and we meet Mclean and her dad, who are constantly on the road thanks to his job as a restaurant consultant. He's called in to fix up restaurants and Mclean moves with him from town to town for his job—mostly because she doesn't want to stay with her mom after their nasty divorce. She doesn't make too many attachments, and is resolved to keep her distance from other people and not get too close when they land in their latest town, Lakeview.
Rising Action
Real Life is Messy
Despite Mclean's best efforts, she starts putting down roots in Lakeview. She makes some friends, and even starts working on the community project at the restaurant where her dad works, Luna Blu.
But being real comes with its own challenges, and she starts feeling vulnerable when she realizes that she likes the boy next door—and when she is honest with her mom about her feelings of anger and resentment, things get choppy in their relationship too. When she finds out that her dad has gotten a new job in Hawaii and that her mom wants her to spend spring break at her new beach house, things just get messier and messier for our main girl.
Climax
Runaway
When Mclean gets to the beach house, she's all sorts of confused—(1) she has to hang out with her mom for a long period of time, and (2) she doesn't want to move to Hawaii with her dad. She wants to stay in Lakeview super badly, then she overhears her mom on the phone and assumes that her she doesn't even want her here, so she ends up running away to the Poseidon, a ramshackle motel that they used to stay in when she was a kid.
Poor Mclean—she feels completely adrift in the world, and all by herself.
Falling Action
That 2:00AM Life Line
Mclean ends up calling Dave at 2:00AM, who tells her parents where she is. They come and finally realize that the divorce has had a much bigger impact on Mclean than they thought, and they apologize for uprooting her and making her teenage years so difficult and lonely. Mclean goes back to Lakeview to finish out the next few weeks before moving back to her hometown with her mom. She's not happy about it, but she's at least resolved to maintain friendships with the people she's met in Lakeview.
Resolution
Home Sweet Home
At the last minute, Mclean's mom decides that she can't uproot her daughter once again and agrees to let her stay in Lakeview with Opal. Yay—Mclean finally gets to stay put for once, and she ends up graduating with the rest of her friends and participating in all the senior class shenanigans. She even starts working at Opal's new restaurant and develops a romantic relationship with Dave. In other words, as the book ends, everything's finally coming up roses.