Sixteen-year-old Maggy's life consists of trying to be invisible at school, taking care of her alcoholic mother, and spending all the time she can at the Blue Mirror, a downtown café. She can lose herself there for hours with a cappuccino and her sketchbook, in which she creates a paper world she calls "The Blue Mirror." But everything changes when she meets Cole, a charismatic runaway. Maggy is intrigued by Cole's risky life on the streets and by the girls who follow him, childlike Jouly and strange Marianne. And when Cole says that he loves her, Maggy comes alive. As Maggy becomes more entwined with Cole and she looks at him with all her heart, she sees something far more dangerous than she may be capable of handling.

In poetic and evocative language, Kathe Koja draws us into the haunting, passionate world of The Blue Mirror.