The story begins with Robie’s trip to visit her aunt in Honolulu. She has been to her aunt’s home several times before and enjoys these sojourns as a break from the monotony of her life on Midway, a very small island at the western end of the Hawaiian archipelago.

In the first scene of the book, Robie is at a tattoo and piercings parlor, getting a nose ring. While at the parlor, she reveals to the reader that she lives on Midway, and also reveals her ambivalence about that life. While she admits that she is lucky to enjoy the extraordinary proximity to nature, she also gripes about the isolation of island life, and the small annoyances that Midway residents have to put up with, including limited grocery supplies and intermittent Wi-Fi. For Robie, the trip to Honolulu to stay with her Aunt AJ is a special treat. She indulges in Netflix and Starbucks, and long afternoons at the pool with her aunt, who is portrayed as a laidback authority figure with relatively lax expectations.

Chapter 1 depicts some highlights of Robie’s trip, portraying not only her nose piercing but also the afternoon she gets a henna tattoo.