Best Friends

Written by: Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham

First line: Do you want to be best friends?

Why you should read this book: Picking up soon after Real Friends leaves off, Best Friends finds Shannon, still insecure, but ready to conquer sixth grade. Jen, the most popular girl in school, is her best friend now, and Shannon mostly understands social rules and expectations, but still spends most of her life wondering if she's doing things right, or if everyone is about to turn on her because she doesn't know the right music, or the right shows, or the right dance moves. In addition, now that everyone's having puberty, there are more rules to understand about the boys who have suddenly been added to the mix, and the other girls don't seem interested in Shannon's creative life, and she still gets weird vibes from the frenemy she told off at the end of the previous book, and now her anxiety has manifest in somatic symptoms that make it even more difficult to fit in.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've spent a lot of time trying to forget the trauma of the eighties.