A debut entry in a tween series based on the best-selling Jessica Darling adult books finds Jessica preparing to start seventh grade by referring to her older sister's guidelines for guaranteed popularity before stumbling her way into the role of the school's seagull mascot. In Sloppy Firsts, I always felt like Jessica and Marcus’ relationship up to that point was vague, at best. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

It was so good to see a humorous Jessica that is not so cynical and jaded by all the years, as you see by the end of book 5. Funny, winning, and completely relatable, she makes for delightful company as she navigates her way through a new school, and it's impossible not to root for her through all her misadventures. and generally made me afraid that McCafferty's intelligent and funny writing was going to be toned down too much.

What’s beautiful about this book is that Jessica’s trademark independence and persistence emerge during one of the most trying times in the formation of a person’s identity: the beginning of junior high. Adults (parents and teachers), with few exceptions, are caricatures: exaggerated, one-dimensional, and often foolish.

I loved the setting because Jessica Darling’s character timeline is on par with my personal experience. But if they continue to have encounters as they do here, if Jessica continues to be aware of Marcus (and harbour a small crush on him as she does here), it really colours their future interactions differently – and also gets rid of some of the bombshells that are dropped throughout the series. Don't get me wrong, I loved Marcus in this, but I feel like he was just there because what's a Jessica Darling book without Marcus Flutie? Thus, the It List - Bethany's guide to how Jessica will become super popular and rule the junior high halls.I understood why Manda and Sara might wish they had boyfriends like Dori and Bridget or a friendship that went all the way back to crib. As a huge fan of the original Jessica Darling series, or, at least, as huge of a fan as one can be while intentionally deciding not to finish said series, I was super curious about Megan McCafferty's prequel. I could see how Dori and Bridget might envy Manda’s persuasive personality or Sara’s all-knowingness. But readers meeting Jessica for the first time will be charmed by this authentic and funny girl who makes well-tread territory feel as new as a pair of first-day-of-school sneakers. While it was sort of neat to see how Jessica got into running and met her frenemies, it was also weird and almost caricature-like that her characters were so incessantly the same from grade 7 to grade 11, when we otherwise would have first met them.