Nina is a young Latin girl, raised by a single mother who doesn't bother with her daughters life or the traumatic events she experiences, who grows up in a run down area that exposes her to all of the harsh conditions that plague so many poverty-stricken youth, and the only way she thinks she can escape it is by growing up as fast as she can...which means getting married before she finishes high school, having kids before she gets old enough to drink, and making her way through a succession of men who all put her through hell in their own way...despite all of the cruel obstacles she gets thrown at, Nina never stops fighting to have a better life...to find happiness in an increasingly pessimistic world...and to experience actual love, in a life that mostly offers the illusion of it...