Best friends Harper Waddle, Sophie Bushell, and Kate Foster committed the ultimate suburban sin: bailing on college to pursue their dreams. Middlebury-bound Becca Winsberg was convinced her friends had gone insane until they reminded her she just might have a dream of her own.

Now the year is half-way through and their dreams seem within reach. Well, almost. Harper has managed to gain the freshman fifteen without ever being a freshman, though locked in her basement bathroom she finds inspiration and finally seems to be writing from the heart. Sophie is forced to leave her cushy Beverly Hills quarters and crashes on Sam's couch while looking for her big Hollywood break. Kate is doing aid work in Ethiopia, where she encounters family ghosts - along with Darby, the handsome but antagonistic Princeton student who thinks she's a dumb blonde who couldn't possibly care about Ethiopia "since there are no celebrities here." And when Becca finally emerges from her lovers' nest, it seems her relationship with Stuart isn't as perfect as she thought.

Even if "the year that changed everything" has sometimes been less than dreamy, these four best friends will always have each other.