Cardinal rule #1 for surviving school: Don’t get noticed by the mean kids.
Cardinal rule #2 for surviving school: Seek out groups with similar interests and join them.
On her first day at her new school, Penelope–Peppi–Torres reminds herself of these basics. But when she trips into a quiet boy in the hall, Jaime Thompson, she’s already broken the first rule, and the mean kids start calling her the “nerder girlfriend.” How does she handle this crisis? By shoving poor Jaime and running away!
Falling back on rule two and surrounding herself with new friends in the art club, Peppi still can’t help feeling ashamed about the way she treated Jaime. Things are already awkward enough between the two, but to make matters worse, he’s a member of her own club’s archrivals–the science club! And when the two clubs go to war, Peppi realizes that sometimes you have to break the rules to survive middle school!
It was a really cute book! I ship the two main characters [this is not a romance]. You can consider it a Romeo and Juliet situation, where two people in different clubs try to get along despite the warring states [this is not a romance].
Honestly, true to life in some places. I don’t know about y’all but art club is definitely exactly as it was depicted in the book.
Also, out of left field, uuuh, Madeline’s parents, holy shit? Didn’t expect THAT to pop out. Like. “Glad you’re not like your lazy xxxxx mom” was literally on the page. Us grown ass adults know exactly what it was. I mean, it was a shock in the middle of this but at the same time, I do htink it’s important to expose kids to those really awkward situations and points where your friends are under a crazy weird different kind of pressure. Absolutely insane in the middle of goofiness.
And then it went back to normal shit.
Actually, you know what, if I think about it, a lot of kid’s books do that, so it really shouldn’t surprise me, and maybe it’s just because my echolalia has been going “your lazy bitch mother” since I finished reading the book this morning.
It’s quite a good book, and I enjoyed it still as a grown ass adult.
