Since kindergarten, Zoe Rose has had a hard time fitting in with other girls. Her interest in the life long study of human behavior began when she was in the second grade. Her best friend, Ali, was ridiculed for wearing the same dirty, pink polka dot dress to school everyday by the other girls in the class. This childhood experience launched Zoe on an unquenchable desire to understand why girls are like they are to other girls.

Zoe begins a job as Deputy Editor of the women's magazine Issues. Her plan is to "raid the locker room of the female psych and rip open the frilly facade of femininity once and for all." She meets with a great deal of resistance from her co-workers, who want to "eat-her-alive", and the stress begins to take its toll on her.

Zoe struggles to come to terms with the insecure little girl still inside her. As her psychosomatic symptoms and her irrational phobias to germs escalate, she fears she is losing her mind while those around are convinced she has.