During the summer after her sophomore year, Deanna Lambert tries to come to terms with the reputation with which she was slapped in the eighth grade when she was caught by her father in the backseat of a car with a high school senior, and struggles with her still-strained relationship with her father and her changing feelings for her best friend, Jason.

While on a mission to the planet Gethen, earthling Genly Ai is sent by leaders of the nation of Orgoreyn to a concentration camp from which the exiled prime minister of the nation of Karhide tries to rescue him.

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper starts sleeping with Wesley Rush, a notorious womanizer who disgusts her, in order to distract her from her personal problems, and to her surprise, the two of them find they have a lot in common and are able to help each other find more productive ways to deal with their difficulties.