It is 1983 and Vanessa Martin, a thirteen-year-old African American girl in Newark's public housing, dreams of following in the footsteps of the first black Miss America, Vanessa Williams; but the odds are against her until a new teacher at school organizes a beauty pageant and encourages Vanessa to enter.

Annabelle Louis is a military brat, and complete nerd who has always been homeschooled, but with her mother going on assignment in Afghanistan, she is going to have to attend middle school; her therapist suggests she try sports to make friends, and she creates a vlog, Daphne Doesn't, in which she makes fun of all the things that she considers a waste of time (for example, sports and school)--the vlog proves to be a big hit, but when her classmates...