Kate and Marylin were inseparable before their friendship fell apart the first year of middle school. Now they are working to make things right again. But they’re so different. Kate adores her new combat boots as much as the electric guitar she’s determined to learn to play. Marylin is starting seventh grade near the top of the social order as a cheerleader, albeit far from the leader of the pack. Marylin feels embarrassed for Kate at times, even as she dreads navigating the minefield of personalities and power plays that Kate somehow seems to ignore. For both girls, the surprising new friendships they develop with others help them find solid footing, both in their understanding of themselves and in their relationship with each other. Frances O’Roark Dowell continues the story she began in The Secret Language of Girls (Atheneum, 2004) with a novel that stands on its own as it moves fluidly between the lives and emotions of its characters, capturing anxieties of adolescence with depth, honesty, and tenderness. (Ages 10–13)

Edgar Award–winning novelist Frances O’Roark Dowell explores the shifting terrain of middle-school friendship in this follow-up to the beloved The Secret Language of Girls. Kate and Marylin are smack dab in the middle of middle school—seventh grade—and they know they can never be best friends like they used to be. Marylin is a middle school cheerleader obsessed with popularity and hairstyles, and Kate is the exact opposite with her combat boots and hankering to learn guitar and write her own songs. Still, Kate and Marylin yearn to find some middle ground for their friendship—but it’s harder than they ever imagined.