My Summer Vacationis about loss, recovery, and coming to terms with the imperfectionsof our family, our friends, and our selves. Below is a brief summary ofMy Summer Vacation. Sixteen-year-old, self-help book junky Maddie Hickman is desperately seeking solace from her sophomore year of high school, a year of broken hearts, torn friendships, and family secrets revealed. Thanks to a position as a CIT (counselor-in-training) at Jonah’s Rock, a hippy, artsy-fartsy summer camp, as her Jewish Martha Stewart mother calls it, solace has been found—or so she thinks. Instead of a relaxing summer at the Pub Shop writing short stories and poems, recovering from a terrible breakup with her first love and her family’s struggle with her alcoholic sister, Maddie finds herself in the middle of more drama. First, there’s new fellow Pub Shop CIT Noah, who came to camp to recover from the death of his girlfriend. In an uncomfortable twist of fate, Maddie happens to be the spitting image of his girlfriend who was killed months before camp by a drunk driver. Then, Maddie’s long-time camp crew is ripped apart by lies and betrayal, and Maddie must choose between her friends. And finally, she forms an unlikely friendship with a new camper who suffers not only from Tourette syndrome, but also from family dysfunction worse than her own. Yet, it’s this relationship with Brian that helps her to forgive and also accept her own family and friends and, most importantly, herself—imperfections and all.