In some ways, Jade feels like she must leave her neighborhood in order to succeed: she buses out of her North Portland neighborhood every day to attend St. Francis, a private high school on the other side of town where she has a full scholarship. Most people don’t think Jade’s neighborhood is beautiful, but Jade does her best to see its beauty by picking up littered paper scraps and turning them into collages. The night before Jade starts her junior year, Mom asks Jade to make a friend this year. This hasn’t been easy in the past—most students at St. Francis are wealthy, even the black kids. Jade feels like she can only really understand her best friend, Lee Lee. The next morning, Jade notices a young white girl getting off the bus at the same stop. At lunch, Jade goes to a meeting with Mrs. Parker, her guidance counselor. She’s believes the meeting is about the service learning study abroad trip, which Jade has wanted to go on since she started at St. Francis. Instead, Mrs. Parker gives Jade a folder for the Woman to Woman mentorship program. Awkwardly, Mrs. Parker explains that Jade is at risk for “certain things” because of her circumstances, but she makes it clear that Jade will get a scholarship to college if she completes the program. Jade doesn’t want to say yes but she knows she has to. One question on the form asks what Jade wants out of the program, but she leaves it blank.
After school, Lee Lee comes over. Lee Lee tells Jade about York, the black slave who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition. Jade has never heard of York and she is struck by his story. The next day, Jade invites the white girl on the bus to sit next to her. Her name is Sam, and the girls bond quickly when they realize that they both get free lunch thanks to their scholarships. By October, they’ve become close friends. Around this time, Jade attends the first meeting for Woman to Woman. The meeting is awful: Jade’s mentor, Maxine, doesn’t show up, and the organizer, Sabrina, tries to get everyone to play a name game. Upset, Jade heads home. She brushes off Mom’s advice to stand up for herself and she ignores her uncle E.J. A bit later, however, Maxine shows up at Jade’s house with a gift. She gives Jade art supplies, which Jade appreciates, but Maxine accepts a phone call from her boyfriend while she’s there. After Maxine leaves, E.J. shares that he knows Maxine—she was dating his friend Jon, but they just broke up. Jade wonders if Maxine stood her up for a boy.
A few days later, Jade goes to Sam’s house. Sam’s grandmother, Mrs. Franklin, has Alzheimer’s and she spews racist rhetoric, but Sam’s grandfather, Mr. Franklin, seems kind and calm. The girls talk about what it’s like to attend St. Francis. Sam feels guilty for her good fortune but she suggests they shouldn’t feel bad for getting what they deserve. This mindset shocks Jade; she knows that people deserve all sorts of things they don’t get. However, the girls decide that this year will be better now that they’re friends.
Maxine and Jade make plans to go out for brunch for Jade’s birthday, but Mom insists that Maxine can’t take Jade out without her permission. Mom makes it very clear that even if she’s not home much, she’s still an involved parent. On Jade’s actual birthday, both Lee Lee and Sam cancel their plans. Dad doesn’t show up either, but E.J. brings Jade cheesecake—and on Monday, Sam surprises Jade by decorating her locker. After school, Jade visits Dad and she accepts his gift of a digital camera and printer. A few days later, Maxine buys Jade books about black collage artists. Maxine’s generosity makes Jade feel warmer about Woman to Woman. She attends a meeting at Sabrina’s house about dating, though what Jade really wants to learn about is how to afford a nice house like Sabrina’s. Sabrina tells the girls that they must all believe that they’re worthy of love and of achieving their dreams, which makes Jade think that people have lots of dreams, but that doesn’t mean they’ll come true. She feels like the mentors and Mom make her feel whole, while leaving the house makes her feel shattered. Not long after, Kennedy and Josiah invite Jade and Sam to come with them and some friends to get lunch. Jade feels humiliated when one girl makes Jade sit in the front seat, insisting that Jade won’t fit in the back, and she feels even worse when another girl talks disparagingly about Northeast Portland. That night, Mom leaves Jade money for dinner and Jade goes to Dairy Queen. There, boys there harass and catcall her, making her feel awful about her weight. She creates a collage about her experience.
At a Woman to Woman outing right after Thanksgiving, Jade and Maxine go to the art museum. Maxine condescendingly reminds Jade of the rules but then she takes a call from Jon, leaving Jade to go through the museum herself. After the museum, Maxine takes Jade out for dinner and she insists that people in North Portland never leave their bubble. Even when Jade points out the economic reasons why her neighbors might not get out much, Maxine doesn’t listen and she accuses Jade of being a pessimist. When Jade finally calls Maxine out on her rude behavior, Maxine asks for another chance, and for a while she makes more of an effort to spend time with Jade. In January, she invites Jade to her apartment to hang out with her friends, Bailey and Kira. When Kira quietly offers to talk to Jade about sex if she ever needs it, Maxine insists that Jade isn’t like “those girls.” Jade is offended—she knows that Maxine is referring to other girls from Jade’s neighborhood—and she also knows that she’s not so different from those girls.
One day, Jade and Sam go to the mall after school. While Sam is allowed to take her backpack into a dressing room, a clerk gives Jade the choice of either leaving her bag at the counter or leaving the store. Jade knows that the clerk is racially profiling her, but Sam insists that the clerk just did her job and wasn’t racist. Because of this incident, Jade is in a bad mood as she tries to do homework later. Jade’s attempt to ask Mom about going to Woman to Woman’s healthy eating seminar doesn’t go over well, as Mom takes it as an insult to her cooking. Mom is even more upset when, a few days later, she and Jade discuss Jade’s upcoming trip to the symphony. At the symphony, the volunteer is prejudiced and rude. Meanwhile, Jade continues to mull over what to do about Sam and she feels horrendous when she learns that their Spanish teacher, Mr. Flores, nominated Sam to go to Costa Rica on the service learning trip and not Jade. Jade tries to be happy for Sam, but she can’t.
Maxine invites Jade to her parents’ house for Soul Food Sunday. Maxine’s siblings, Nathan and Mia, are very nice, as is Nathan’s wife, Abby—but Maxine won’t let Jade speak for herself. Jade meets Mr. and Mrs. Winters and they sit down for dinner. Mrs. Winters asks for everyone’s updates, but after Abby announces that she’s pregnant, Mrs. Winters doesn’t bother to ask Maxine for news. After dinner, Mrs. Winters insists on packing bags of food for Jade and she scolds Maxine for being unemployed. Jade feels like Maxine’s charity case and as though Maxine is ashamed of her. When Jade shares with Mom that she’s thinking of quitting Woman to Woman because of Maxine’s behavior, Mom loses her temper. She tells Jade to learn as much as she can from Maxine. Mom goes as far as to ask Lee Lee to talk to Jade, and Lee Lee encourages Jade to speak to the Woman to Woman organizers. Jade realizes that she’s been so focused on Spanish that she hasn’t realized she can speak up for herself in English. A few days later, Jade asks to meet up with Maxine. She tells Maxine that Maxine’s behavior makes her feel bad. Maxine apologizes, promises to do better, and even promises to drop Jon—but she also makes Jade promise to give people and experiences second chances.
On Monday, Jade is distraught to learn that police officers in Vancouver beat a young black teen named Natasha Ramsey. At lunch that day, Jade joins a white girl named Hannah in talking rudely to a lunch monitor, Ms. Weber. Although Hannah instigates this and she is much crueler, Mrs. Weber sends Jade instead of Hannah to Mrs. Parker’s office. Mrs. Parker sends Jade home. On the phone later, Sam insists that Hannah’s lack of punishment had nothing to do with her being white. Exasperated, Jade calls Lee Lee. Jade stays up all night working on a collage about York, and a few days later she talks to Maxine about what happened with Sam. Maxine encourages Jade to talk to Sam about what she feels and to remember that Sam’s friendship offers Jade different but meaningful things.
Taking Maxine and Lee Lee’s advice to heart, Jade approaches Mr. Flores and asks why he didn’t nominate her for the study abroad trip. He insists he has to be fair to his students, and Jade already receives lots of help. Jade points out that she tutored half the kids going—this is about him seeing her as black instead of as a star student. As the trip approaches, Jade visits Sam. The girls argue: Sam thinks it’s unfair that Jade gets to go to the museum and the symphony, while Jade tries to make Sam see that because she’s white, people think she deserves to go to Costa Rica. Jade decides it’s easier to walk away and she leaves Sam’s house. Over spring break, Jade makes collages and she and her friends witness a terrifying but nonviolent police stop. When she returns to school, Sam acknowledges her but they don’t speak.
Things with Maxine continue to improve. Maxine and Jade are able to connect over their shared experiences of racism, and Woman to Woman puts on a very useful money management workshop at Jade’s request. Jade also looks forward to visiting Mia’s art gallery and she even allows Maxine to help her take out her braids one night. Mom is initially displeased, but she begins to warm to Maxine when Maxine admits she doesn’t know how to cook. Under Mom’s guidance, she starts to learn. The trip to Mia’s gallery is wonderful, not least because Jade works up the courage to ask for an internship application. At the next meeting Sabrina asks Jade if she’d submit a collage for the Woman to Woman benefit auction. Jade is thrilled to get her work out there. At the event, Jade speaks to several people who offer to help her and several who make racist assumptions about her. She focuses on all the people who barely know her but who want to help her succeed, such as Andrew, a man who purchases her collage. The next night, Jade and Lee Lee decide to organize a benefit event in honor of Natasha Ramsey. They decide to hold a poetry reading and an art show—and they have the whole thing planned before Jade remembers that she should ask Mia if she’d be willing to host. Fortunately, Mia is, and the event grows as more and more people get involved.
One day in Spanish class, Sam and Jade finally talk to each other. Sam apologizes and she admits she doesn’t know how to talk about race. After class, Mr. Flores also apologizes to Jade and he shares that he’s put her name down preemptively for the trip next year. After this, Jade and Sam’s friendship returns to normal, and Sam throws herself into helping plan the benefit. On the night of the event, Jade looks around in appreciation at her community, and Lee Lee reads a poem about the power of black girls. Jade makes one final collage about York, but it includes a picture of her too. Both she and York hold maps and they are traveling to discover themselves.
