The story of a shy, misunderstood teen who has never had the courage to ask a girl out on a date, and who longs for a lasting relationship.

It was the summer of 1968. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been cut down by a sniper's bullet. Senator Bobby Kennedy, on the campaign trail in California, had been assassinated. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago had left a black eye on the city. And 16-year-old Paulie Passero was oblivious to it all.

In a coming-of-age story, an underachieving high school junior, who has never had the courage to ask a girl out on a date, is about to experience The Summer of Guinevere. When his father learns that his mother, the woman who disowned him years earlier, is lying on her deathbed, he decides to return to rural Leroy, Pennsylvania after more than two decades, to say goodbye. He takes Paulie along to meet the grandmother he has never known.

Paulie is unprepared for and unaccustomed to Smalltown USA. He busies himself with mundane activities until he notices a girl riding in the back of a pickup truck one day. He is immediately enamored with her. When the two finally meet, she wants nothing to do with him, but Paulie is determined to win her over. In what soon becomes the first meaningful relationship of his life, Paulie learns that this is a troubled girl with a shameful past who yearns to escape the clutches of an abusive father.