GIRL VS. SUPERSTAR

Getting dumped by her two best friends isn’t how Lucy wanted to start sixth grade. Now she’s stuck being best friends with one of the most annoying girls in school. She thinks her life couldn’t get worse, but then her mom announces that she’s dating Alan, whose 14-year-old daughter, Laurel, is a famous TV and recording star. Laurel is no BFF replacement. She’s germophobic and obsessive-compulsive. Laurel and Lucy eventually bond over being friend-dumped, and their relationship becomes friendly if not sisterly. Their parents’ marriage and move from Lucy’s small hometown in Massachusetts to New York City creates a new set of challenges. Learning her way around the city is a battle by itself, never mind starting a new school and making new friends. Through all her life’s mortifications (and this novel gives her a lot), Lucy keeps an upbeat attitude and sense of humor without coming off as sickly sweet in her first-person narration. Many girls will also sympathize with Lucy’s neuroses over starting her period. The first in what promises to be a series of light yet heartfelt adventures. (Fiction. 8-12)