Eleanor H. Porter's most famous literary creation is "Pollyanna", but she isn't the only precocious young girl to spring from the author's pen. Mary Marie Anderson describes herself as "a cross-current and a contradiction", the offspring of incompatible parents who couldn't even agree about her name. Her father calls her Mary, and her mother calls her Marie. When the two divorce when she is 13, Mary Marie is delighted since she's always liked being different. None of the other girls have two homes and spend six months with each parent! Father will remain in their small town, and Mother will live in Boston with her family.

This exciting development persuades Mary Marie to keep a diary that she plans to turn into a novel. Surely one of her parents will remarry and provide the romance to spice up her story. But adolescence is not an easy time of life, and harsh reality intervenes when she discovers that 1920s America is not always tolerant of divorce. Her chronically absentminded father seems to have little interest in her, made worse by an overbearing and dour aunt who moves in with him. And over time, being fun-loving Marie in the city and sober Mary in the country becomes confusing and wears thin. She's always liked being different...but not being two different girls! Worst of all: Why can't either of her parents find someone new and turn her novel into a love story?