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 (Initial Situation)
Wow, Life Really Sucks
Connie is sent to an asylum for hitting the pimp who was abusing her niece, Dolly. This puts Connie where she's going to be for the whole novel: unjustly detained, powerless, generally miserable. (Oh, and Luciente shows up from the future too, suggesting that maybe Connie is insane—though not for hitting the pimp.)
Rising Action (Conflict, Complication)
We Want Brains!
The doctors decide they want to stick an implant in Connie's brain to make her brain better. This is the main conflict; if Connie doesn't escape or find some way out, the doctors are going to permanently mess her up. (And Connie's going back and forth to the future here, learning more about how Luciente's world is just and wonderful and hers… well, it isn't.)
Climax (Crisis, Turning Point)
This… This Means War!
Connie sees the war in the future, and Jackrabbit's death, and decides that she is at war herself with the wardens and doctors. Her determination to fight back leads her to be willing to take drastic measures.
Falling Action
Luis, You're Really Lucky
Connie visits her brother Luis for Thanksgiving; she doesn't manage to escape, but she gets poison… which she uses on the doctors when she comes back. She also begins to lose touch with the future, and sees alternate futures, and generally things start to fall apart for her. And even more for the doctors, though it's hard to feel all that sorry for them.
Resolution (Denouement)
Wow, Life Really Sucks
The book wraps up quickly with Connie shipped off to an asylum permanently and her contact with Luciente broken so she won't even have her (imaginary?) friend.