LUV YA BUNCHES

Katie-Rose, Yasaman, Violet and Milla each occupy a different point in the fifth-grade social pecking order: Bossy, movie-obsessed Katie-Rose is at the bottom with Yasaman, whose hijab-wearing quietude belies her sharp insight and impressive computer geekery. New girl Violet has serious cool potential but is tortured by worries over her institutionalized mother, while fundamentally nice but deeply anxious Milla can’t disentangle herself from Mean Girl–in-chief Modessa (fittingly called Medusa by Katie-Rose) and her henchwoman, Quin. With the blend of IM, texting, screenplay format, blog posts and standard narrative familiar from Myracle’s ttfn series, each chapter shifts perspective, letting readers see the action from each girl’s point of view. The plot is thin but perfectly captures tweens’ concerns about social machinations, fitting in and finding a trustworthy group of pals, existing primarily to bring together the fabulously diverse foursome as they put a fitting, funny end to Modessa’s reign of terror. It’s no classic, but this series launch will be embraced, read and passed from friend to friend on middle-school playgrounds everywhere. (Fiction. 9-12)