While living very different lives on opposite coasts, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth and eighteen-year-old Lauren become acquainted by email the summer before they begin rooming together as freshmen at UC-Berkeley.

When an embarrassing message between Charla and Daniel goes out to the whole class, Jessie discovers someone has been tampering with Charla's lawyer mom's computer, and in order to keep the culprit from walking free, Jessie and Charla need Daniel's help, but when some messages go out, they are hard to take back.

Bernadette, having wished on the eve of her fortieth birthday to be young again, wakes up the next morning as a twelve-year-old, and enrolls in her son Patrick's class in hopes of somehow enlisting his help in returning to her old self.

Nim Rusoe is a young girl who inhabits an isolated island with her scientist father and communicates, via e-mail, with the reclusive author of the novel she has been reading. Nim's existence mirrors that of her favorite literary character, Alex Rover, the world's greatest adventurer. But Alexandra, the author of the Rover books, leads a reclusive life in the big city. When Nim's father goes missing from the island, Nim gets Alexandra to come to her...