Evelyn Bucknow is highly intelligent, not pretty, and determined not to sink into the sea of loserhood that her relatives swim in. It`s the 1980s, and her grandfather is a bigot, her grandmother is a mindless Reaganite, her single mother gets pregnant by her boss and produces a retarded child, and the boy Evelyn loves falls for her prettier best friend. But Evelyn doesn`t let it get to her. She pulls herself together, wins the school science prize, and shows every indication that she will go on to even more stellar achievements.