Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on the fictional estate of Hartfield in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her elderly widowed father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband, John. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr. Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking.

When the quiet girl in Clayton Hugh's chemistry class comes knocking on his door at five in the morning barely covered up in her little pajamas, inattentive, and drooling like crazy, he has no choice but to take her inside. But once Lucy Walker wakes up inside a room she has never seen before wearing an over-sized t-shirt and gym shorts, you can imagine the pure panic setting in her. The subtle addition of Clayton entering the room shirtless doesn't help much either. After three years of fawning over him, leave it up to her sleepwalking to finally get Clayton Hugh to notice her.

Serena Davidson leads two lives. At school, she's a morbidly obese, stupid, nerdy, bitchy, slutty, and a teacher's pet. But at home she's the scrawny vegetarian pushover. What would possess someone to wear a fat suit every day? And what happens when someone finds out?