MEANICURES

Seventh grader Madison is amazed by the meanness of the mean-girl clique, especially since their leader is her ex-BFF. Madison and her two closest friends, Taylor and Olivia, who also used to be close to the mean girls, decide that they’ll engage in a ritual burning of some memorabilia left over from their friendships. Supernatural weirdness begins, and Madison, Taylor and Olivia find that they’ve become the mean girls. Madison decides to stop the cycle of nastiness by getting the six girls together for a day of manicures given by the local witchy aesthetician. Can the “meanicures” reunite all six girls as the best of friends? The magical mechanism behind Madison and her friends’ personality changes is not well explained, nor is the aesthetician’s role in altering the girls’ relationships and personalities made clear. Even with a faulty plot, however, the story is resolved in an upbeat way: Madison accepts that her old friendships may never be the same, and once she does this, she and her friends are able to focus on being their best selves. (Fiction. 8-12)