We're all just one bad decision away from disaster. For as long as 14-year-old Robin Fisher can remember, she has lived by her insurance salesman father's credo, happy to live the American Dream and catalogue everyday calamities under "Bad Things that Happen to Other People." But life in 1970s Golden, California, doesn't prove so golden after her father deserts the family, setting in motion a series of events that results in Robin accidentally setting fire to an abandoned party house. Seemingly overnight, she discovers that earthquakes or the possibility of electrocution are nothing compared to the hazards of high school or coming home to a family that is suddenly one member short. As Robin struggles to keep an eye on her fixation with Bic lighters and her newly independent mother's own growing pains, she is drawn into the orbit of Carol "Jesus Freak" Closter, a vulnerable yet charismatic classmate whose friendship will challenge Robin in ways she could never have imagined. When Carol finally crosses a dangerous line, it's Robin who must make a heartbreaking decision of her own.