A girl named Lilly voluntarily calls herself Shug. After reading The Color Purple, she became enamored with Shug's character and decided to commit to it in college. She has an incredibly bubbly and attractive personality. Everyone loves being around her. There is one person who doesn't love her much, Asha. The lack of interest almost seems to offend Lilly. Asha girl has no interest in Shug and only sees her as trouble. She insists on calling her Lilly and avoids her when she can. When their college campus is in the middle of trying to demolish the only safe space black students have on campus, the two of them have to join forces to protect what they hold dear. Lilly discovers that she's maybe a bit more like Shug than she intended to be and Asha finds herself confronting parts of herself that she never intended to resurface as she gets closer to Lilly.