Emily Hamilton, a fifty-year-old teacher at a Catholic high school, teaches her students about long-forgotten saints and martyrs, until a student's unusual version of a class assignment brings Emily face to face with temptations past and present.

"Three freshmen must join forces to survive at a troubled, working-class Catholic high school with a student body full of bullies and zealots, and a faculty that's even worse in Anthony Breznican's Brutal Youth. With a plunging reputation and enrollment rate, Saint Michael's has become a crumbling dumping ground for expelled delinquents and a haven for the stridently religious when incoming freshman Peter Davidek signs up. On his first day, tensions...