Flannery Culp, a world-weary high school senior, is primed to take on the few remaining obstacles that stand between her and the rest of her life. If only things hadn't gotten out of control and she had stayed away from the absinthe, then she wouldn't be a topic on daytime talk shows or incarcerated.

Flannery Culp wants you to know the whole story of her spectacularly awful senior year. Tyrants, perverts, tragic crushes, gossip, cruel jokes, and the hallucinatory effects of absinthe -- Flannery and the seven other friends in the Basic Eight have suffered through it all. But now, on tabloid television, they're calling Flannery a murderer, which is a total lie. It's true that high school can be so stressful sometimes. And it's true that sometimes a girl just has to kill someone. But Flannery wants you to know that she's not a murderer at all -- she's a murderess.