Shannon attends a typical college in a typical college town, neither of which he cares enough to name. He's a wannabe hedonist. He shrugs off his girlfriend's affair with a history teacher because he feels like at his age he's supposed to be too young to care. His cynicism about school and life is hilariously easy to relate to. But the book belongs to Clair.
Clair is a comedic school rebel who makes Shannon laugh, then makes him wonder where the joke is leading, because too often there is a trap door. The more Shannon falls in love and insists on knowing her, the more he comes to find out the cost. Norman—Clair's blunt, profane childhood friend—plays the book's resident prophet of gloom and cynicism—the guy who knows how every love story ends. He also knows how theirs will end, because he holds her secret.
In this psychologically intense romantic comedy novel, everyone assumes that Shannon and Clair's relationship will follow path A, B, C, or D — until the trap door opens.
