While her mother spends the last of the grocery money on alcohol, Charlie watches from the balcony of their concrete apartment building the neighboring bungalows and their residents. She learns that there are several social classes and that she belongs to the lowest one. Then, shortly after her twelfth birthday, a new couple moves into the neighborhood. They are actors, unpredictable, chaotic, luxurious, smarter than everyone else - and for Charlie, they represent what the rest of the world would call her "first great love": playmates and lovers, the greatest influence and the greatest threat. Helene Hegemann tells a clear and radical story about survival in an increasingly apocalyptic world and the vital power of free will.