Beauty Cookson is no beauty. She's a plain, timid girl who constantly feels inferior to the super-confident, snooty girls at school. Worse than the teasing in the playground, though, is the unpredictable, hurtful criticism from her father. Beauty and her meek, sweet mother live in uneasy fear of his fierce rages, sparked whenever they break one of his fussy house rules.

Sunset lives a life of luxury with her beautiful ex-model mum, her world-famous ex-rocker dad and two little celeb siblings. But life on the red carpet is no compensation for rowing parents, constant nagging, intensive media scrutiny and no real friends. Destiny, on the other hand, is an only child living on a rundown estate with a sickly but devoted mum who constantly tells her that she's really the daughter of a famous former rock star...

April has lots of nicknames: there's April Showers, because she's always crying, and April Fool, because of when her birthday falls. Her worst nickname of all, though, is Dustbin Baby. That reminds her of how she started out in life: abandoned in a rubbish bin. When she turns 14, April decides that she must find out who she really is, where she came from and, most importantly, who her real mother is. There have been lots of people she's called Mum, and now she lives with Marion.

Floss's parents are divorced, and she divides up her week, spending five days with her mum, her new step-dad and her baby half-brother. The other two days Floss spends with her dad, helping him to run his greasy spoon cafe. But their simple arrangement is thrown into disarray when Floss's mum decides to move to Australia. Making the difficult decision to stay at home, Floss moves in permanently with her dad and they muddle along happily together, surviving on chip butties and enjoying visits to the local funfair.

Ellie is nearly 13, in Year Nine, and desperate to have a boyfriend. Her best friends Magda and Nadine (both prettier and thinner) have boyfriends, but the closest she can get is Dopey Dan, who is younger and a real swot. Find out all her secrets, squirm at her most embarrassing moment, have a laugh, and discover more about boys!