Indigo Skye is a high school senior with no big plans for the future. She loves her current job as a waitress at the local diner, the kind of place where the regulars are like family and newcomers garner lots of speculation. After Indigo spots a pack of cigarettes in the coat of quiet newcomer to the restaurant, her respect for his privacy dissolves in an anti-smoking diatribe. He responds by leaving her a thank you note and a $2.5 million tip. Deb Caletti has carefully set up what happens next by spending ample time early on grounding readers in the life of this smart, down-to-earth teenage girl and her family and friends, characters who feel authentic, with lives of dreams and regret, humor and heartbreak, and everyday struggles to pay the bills. As a result, the impact and uproar of the stranger’s act is all the more powerful. When her attempt to give the money back is refused, Indigo is suddenly rich, and sure money won’t change her. She’s seen enough of it among other kids at her high school to know it can’t buy things that really matter. But money seems to change the people around her, who suddenly want things that never mattered to them before. At first unable to see that she herself is not immune, Indigo’s sense of self slowly loses its focus in a novel that is an absolute pleasure to read. Caletti’s rich, descriptive writing offers many moments of contemplation and insight in a story that is nonetheless swiftly paced, and exceedingly satisfying. (Age 12 and older)

Eighteen-year-old waitress Indigo Skye’s life is upended when a mysterious man leaves her a multi-million-dollar tip in this funny and moving novel by Printz Honor medal winner and National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti.

I suddenly see where I’m standing, and that’s at the edge of change—really, really big change.

Eighteen-year-old Indigo Skye feels like she has it all—a waitress job she loves, an adorable refrigerator-delivery-guy boyfriend, and a home life that’s slightly overwhelming but rich in love. Until a mysterious man at the restaurant leaves her a 2.5 million-dollar tip, and her life as she knew it is transformed.

At first it’s amazing: a hot new car, enormous flat-screen TV, and presents for everyone she cares about. She laughs off the warnings that money changes people, that they come to rely on what they have instead of who they are. Because it won’t happen…not to her. Or will it? What do you do when you can buy anything your heart desires—but what your heart desires can’t be bought?

This is the story of a girl who gets rich, gets lost, and ultimately finds her way back—if not to where she started, then to where she can start again.