Lian's family has lost its prominence in the Cultural Revolution and is now considered beneath contempt. Her mother, a historian, has been sent to a reeducation camp; her father has been transferred to a far-off province. Lian is in school and has tried to make friends with Kim, a young girl from a desperately poor family. Mao has declared the peasants as the highest class, but the students see Kim's weakness and cruelly torment her.

While Lian is trying to come to her aid, Lian's mother secures permission to take Lian with her to the camp. There, despite the grueling conditions, Lian has the educational opportunity of a lifetime: Several of the nation's leading scholars, all prisoners of the regime, teach her lessons she would never have learned at school. With no friends to speak to, Lian finds a pond and recites her politically condemned lessons to the frogs, thus discovering her own voice. She calls this place the "Lily Theater."

After she leaves the camp, Lian struggles to reconnect with Kim, but their friendship cannot survive the rigid cast system still reigning in Communist China, and their lives turn as chaotic as their turbulent country. With unflinching honesty, Lulu Wang captures the coarse reality of Maoist China, which is startingly offset by the deeply moving story of two girls who fight the odss to preserve their friendship.