Fif­teen-year-old Mike Hol­lan­der is drift­ing in his life. He doesn’t feel strong­ly about any­thing; he doesn’t real­ly feel any­thing much. Not like his best friend Mark Thomp­son, who per­haps feels things too strong­ly. But Mike con­sid­ers him­self just a reg­u­lar guy; noth­ing special.

Then their high school announces an Oppo­site Day, where stu­dents can come dressed as the oppo­site of what they are—nerds can be jocks, jocks can be nerds, and so on. Mark has an idea: Since he and Mike are just reg­u­lar guys, they should do the oppo­site and show up as reg­u­lar girls. Noth­ing special.

Mike is reluc­tant but with the help of two girls, Mark and Mike get the clothes to become two reg­u­lar girls—and it would just be for Oppo­site Day, right? And then every­thing would go back to the way it was, right?

Mark sails through hap­pi­ly but Mike is trou­bled, tied up in knots. The whole ‘reg­u­lar girl’ thing—why did it feel almost … nor­mal? But his def­i­n­i­tion of ‘nor­mal’ is rocked as his own nor­mal world comes apart. His father seems to be some­body com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from the man Mike had known. And then Mike learns that his par­ents’ mar­riage is dis­in­te­grat­ing. And then Mark isn’t spend­ing time with Mike anymore.

And now every­thing seems so oppo­site to the way it was …