Pro of being apart of an obscure fandom from the early 2000s: no obnoxious 2014 One Direction adopts you fan fiction

Cons: no good fan fiction either.

It's so much easier to convince yourself you're madly in love with someone when you know nothing about him.

Megan McCafferty

~Online love ~

You're On Your Own Kid, Taylor Swift // Pinterest image // Charmed Thirds, Megan McCafferty // @whysoovishal // @bloomingtrans // You've Got Mail (1998) // Online Love, Conan Gray

Hi! What is your favourite book and who is your fav author?

I don't know if I have a favorite book but my favorite series that had a significant impact on my life was the Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty. And to be honest -- the Marcs Flutie to Eddie Munson pipeline is insane. The books grew with my older sister agewise, but I read them in high school and had a very similar path to Jessica with having such an on again off again romance and also where she ends up at the end of the series.

I haven't read it in years, but I should see if my sister has them so I can read the series again. It's a time capsule of the early 2000s in a lot of ways and has some of my favorite quotes of all time that still ring in my head like: 'It's so easy to romanticize what never was.' and 'I love him too easily.'

They are obviously YA novels but I recommend them for millenial girlies because they really hard sort of a reminder of the time.

"I believe that what we get out of life is what we’ve set ourselves up to get; there’s no such thing as an inconsequential decision. Our destinies are the culmination of all the choices we’ve made along the way, which is why it’s imperative to listen hard to your inner voice when it speaks up. Don’t let anyone else’s noise drown it out." — Megan McCafferty

A debut author said that there weren’t many books like HP in the fact that they ‘grow up’ with you. I was scratching my head—- is this true in your experience??

I guess I don't really read enough lengthy MG fantasy series to know (I tend to read the first book and then tap out). . . but I can't really think of many that start out when the kid is 12 and end when they are young adults, off-hand. Can you?

In the non-fantasy realm, there is the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor -- which started in middle school and went all the way through to college, and then there were prequels, so the entire series goes from grade 4-college. But those are contemporary fiction, so nothing like HP, obviously -- and they are old, I'm not sure how widely read they are anymore (they are TERRIFIC tho!).

There's the Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall - that takes place over the course of enough years that the "little sister" in the first one is at college in the last - but they are all solidly MG books, though I'm sure fans of the first would want to know what happens even if they technically have aged out.

The Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty started as YA with SLOPPY FIRSTS and goes all the way through college and into Jessica's early 20's -- so the first ones were shelved in YA and the later ones in adult. But that is not what you were asking, either. :-)

So, yeah, I dunno. It's not really a highly usual thing, most of the time series stay approximately for the same audience throughout. (And I'd argue that HP does as well, actually -- the books do get longer and scarier, but there's no reason they have to be KEPT AWAY from 10 year olds or anything.)

Netgalley Review: Sloppy Firsts

https://amzn.to/3NdEdnw Title: Sloppy FirstsAuthor: Megan McCafferty    Release Date: May 4th, 2021Page Count: 388Format: Netgalley/AudiobookStart Date: January 29th, 2023Finish Date: January 30th, 2023 Rating: 3 Stars Review: I was really excited to read this. I didn’t know much about it, but the cover is just so appealing. The idea behind the book is amazing. That’s the only reason I was…

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Totally Youthful Tuesday

Oops, a little thriller today too, though, for the Middle grade readers (or those who like middle grade books).

Roisin has just moved to Massachusetts from Ireland. She’s being bullied by Zara, and, just feels totally alone. Then she finds a friend online, Haley. Maybe. But, online friendships may not always be what they seem. And, when Zara has an accident, and the police get involved, and some of the stuff Roisin has said to Haley could be misinterpreted. But, when she tries to meet Haley in person, well, she can’t. And slowly she starts wondering, who exactly is Haley?

I’ll add to the oops above with an, oops, this one was quite intense too. With so much of it about bullying, about revenge, and, also interweaving tech into and around the story as well. And, what can I say, I do just barely remember when one assumed that friends online were most likely not who they were saying they were. So, I’m probably coming from a slightly different point of view than those (middle grade readers) it is for. But, as I said, reader beware, intense for sure.

You may like this book If you Liked: Best Frenemies Forever by Megan McCafferty, Posted by John David Anderson, or The Best Worst Thing by Kathleen Lane

Friend Me by Sheila M. Averbuch

a list

The 24 Books Pulled from Walton County Library Shelves:

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher Forever… by Judy Blume Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García Melissa (previously published as George) by Alex Gino Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris Tricks by Ellen Hopkins Kite Runner: Graphic Novel by Khaled Hosseini Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Beloved by Toni Morrison Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki Drama by Raina Telgemeier Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

https://pen.org/book-banning-in-walton-county-based-on-misleading-porn-in-schools-report-illustrates-alarming-influence-of-fringe-groups-on-educational-censorship/

"When you say too much about anything important, it always ends up sounding more trivial than it is. Words trash it." -Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty Get this book 📖 - https://amzn.to/3ODMjna #booklover #books #booksquoteqworld #booknerd #bookstagram #bookquote #bookquotes #quotefrombook #quote #quotesoftheday #quotesdaily #quotestagram #quoteoftheday #quotes #words #dontsaytoomuch #sloppyfirsts #meganmccafferty https://www.instagram.com/p/CfRIF_8r0Hy/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Top five favorite songs?

Top five favorite books?

Top five favorite shows?

Top five favorite characters?

Favorite songs (ok, it was hard to narrow it down)

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Slow Show by The National

Across the Universe by The Beatles

Tadhana by UDD

High and Dry by Radiohead

Favorite books:

Harry Potter

Normal People by Sally Rooney

The Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Answered the last two in different asks!

It's so much easier to convince yourself you're madly in love with someone when you know nothing about him.

Megan McCafferty

Mini Torty the Tortoise Reads - Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

[Image description: a small plush beanbag tortoise sits in front of the book Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty, as if it is reading]

7 Worst Books of 2020

Hey everyone! Now, I know the typical number is usually 5 or 10 or even 15 (if you read so many books) but personally, I looked at my books of the year and simply didn’t like these books. So I put these in order from most bad to least bad, to accurately reflect my reading year––the best one in a while.

1. Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty

It was the only book I DNF’d this year. You will see the first book in this series further down on this list because it didn’t fair well either. I only continued with the series because it was on my bookshelf and it finished on just good enough of a cliff hanger that I decided to hold on. But the first sentence immediately irritated me as it completely jumped over the juicy drama that it could’ve milked! It continued to be ridiculously “Y2K” adding xenophobia to the mix (it’s set in 2001) and I could not keep going past page 100.

2. Landline by Rainbow Rowell

I really couldn’t manage to like this one even though I read the whole thing. I was confused and put off from the first fifty pages and I became more and more annoyed and ???. I don’t believe Rainbow Rowell had a clear idea of what she was going for when writing this. That's harsh, but I can’t actually tell what the point of the mystery telephone was or its explanation. This could have been done in a clear way because it was only seemed chaotic and repetitive.

3. The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster

Technically this one shouldn’t be included at all because I read it for class but I only care that I had to read it at all. I can’t deny that I don’t hate the structure of it––I’d love to see a modern day epistolary novel but this one wasn’t interesting. It didn’t help that the in-class discussions weren’t good either. Nearly everyone in my section agreed (and ranted) about something that I felt the complete opposite of but didn’t want to say anything and be the odd one out. For a classic it wasn’t completely terrible but it doesn’t stand out in the slightest.

4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I only disliked parts of this story from the middle onward + the fact that it’s a classic and has boring old language. Plus the old culture and tropes that I’ve seen over and over again. The plot dragged for an incredibly unnecessary length of time, thus making the entire book really long. Not my least favorite classic that I’ve read by any means but definitely not my favorite. I wouldn’t mind reading more of Emily Brontë’s work though to test her out some more.

5. Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

My main problem with this book is how incredibly rooted it is in the “Y2K” era. You couldn’t pull it out of there if wanted to. This goes for what many people claim as being “okay back then” like homophobia and body shaming. The book was entertaining due to how dramatic it is but it often crosses far over the insensitivity line. Since it is entirely written as journal entries it is completely stream of conscious which I hate in any writing. The stream of conscious of a sophomore in high school in 2000? No.

6. Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott

This one was also simply not good but entertaining during enough of it. I’d say it only ranks higher than the previous five because it’s not a classic and isn’t 2000s trash. The characters were incredibly flat (lots of telling, no showing) and the plot was super cliché and predictable. I mean, the characters barely held on to their strict morals for more than a page. Even if it didn’t play out exactly as I suspected, I knew at least the direction that it would go because it’s the same as every 2013 YA Contemporary Romance plot with a teen hardship.

7. Every Day by David Levithan

This is the main one I feel bad about. I didn’t actually dislike this book it just took me an extremely long time to read. I was in a huge reading slump over the entirety of my freshman year of college and before that I only touched about fifty pages over 11 months. It was entertaining and a really unique concept (better than the movie), it just didn’t hold my interest enough.

The Mall

The Mall,  by Megan McCafferty, is a retro, over-the-top YA story about mall culture and the summer after high school. Cassie plans to spend her final summer in New Jersey working along side her boyfriend at America’s Best Cookie, but turns out that while she was home recovering from mono*, her perfect boyfriend started dating the girl from Bath & Body Works. So Cassie goes to work at Bellarosa…

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THE MALL BY MEGAN MCCAFFERTY BLOG TOUR & BOOK REVIEW

"Totally rad! This former 1990s mall teen loved The Mall, an ode to tall bangs, boys with good taste in music, and female friendship, set in the only place that mattered. What a joy to have a new book from Megan McCafferty, who knows exactly how to make us laugh, cry, and fall in love with her characters." -- Amy Spalding, author of The Summer of Jordi Perez and The New Guy

New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty returns to her roots with this YA coming of age story set in a New Jersey mall. The year is 1991. Scrunchies, mixtapes and 90210 are, like, totally fresh. Cassie Worthy is psyched to spend the summer after graduation working at the Parkway Center Mall. In six weeks, she and her boyfriend head off to college in NYC to fulfill The Plan: higher education and happily ever after. But you know what they say about the best laid plans... Set entirely in a classic “monument to consumerism,” the novel follows Cassie as she finds friendship, love, and ultimately herself, in the most unexpected of places. Megan McCafferty, beloved New York Times bestselling author of the Jessica Darling series, takes readers on an epic trip back in time to The Mall.

About the Author:

Megan McCafferty writes fiction for tweens, teens and teens-at-heart of all ages. The author of several novels, she’s best known for Sloppy Firsts and several more books in the New York Times bestselling Jessica Darling series. Described in her first review as “Judy Blume meets Dorothy Parker” (Wall Street Journal), she’s been trying to live up to that high standard ever since.

Review:

"Troy's dislikes were about so much more than ridding controversial items from my wardrobe. They were about removing controversial ideas from my brain."

Year Read: 2020

Rating: 4/5

Thoughts: I'm honored to be asked to read this book, since I'm not sure it's one I would have requested on my own. Its title doesn't do it justice. The Mall makes it sound like it's a story about vapid, Clueless-era mallrats--no hate, I adore Clueless and I'm fond of malls, but this story is far more charming than the title lets on. First of all, it's a love letter to the 90s. If the mall of the 90s was your natural habitat as a teenager, then you're sure to enjoy all the nostalgic references to stores that are no longer around, like Kay-Bee Toys, Orange Julius, and Sam Goody. It really took me back to days of hanging at the mall with my friends, stocking up on 10 for $10 jewelry at Claire's, and searching for clearance band/horror movie t-shirts at Sam Goody, Suncoast, and Media Play before there ever was such a thing as a Hot Topic at my mall. I love that McCafferty set her story in this time period, and it's sure to resonate with readers slightly older than the average YA audience.

It's also fun for anyone who's ever worked in a mall, since they develop their own weird inner cultures. Cassie has Kool-Aid and Everclear and a Cabbage Patch Kids treasure hunt; I had urban legends about cursed objects and The Buckle challenge, wherein employees of other stores try to make it to the back wall of The Buckle without being pounced on by another retailer. The treasure hunting plot is fun, not unlike the teenagers trying to crack Russian codes in Stranger Things (without the guns and monsters). It gets enough attention to keep the plot moving, but as in life, it's not always the obvious things that end up having the most impact. The treasure hunt turns out to be secondary to the real plot development of the novel, which is Cassie's self-discovery and her friendship with Drea. It's a funny, moving coming-of-age story that handles its issues with humor and just the right amount of heart.

I like Cassie; she's my people. She's a straight-A student and an over-achiever, and her brand of know-it-all humor is just my style. McCafferty manages to capture that purely teenage arrogance that comes from being one of the smart kids without making Cassie wholly unlikable. She obviously thinks she's too good to work in a clothing store, and the mall is just a holdover until her real life starts in New York. Yet the book pushes her (not always gently) toward a more adult perspective that there are all kinds of worthwhile jobs in the world and that being a snob to people who earn their living in a mall isn't acceptable. I enjoyed her conquering her fears of her ex-boyfriend and discovering new sides of her personality, her cute new summer romance with "Sam Goody", and most of all her friendship with Drea. They're opposite poles, with Drea being the popular, sophisticated friend with panache, and I like how the book allows them both to be vulnerable in different ways. Cassie is far from a perfect person, and she doesn't give Drea's dreams the respect they deserve but, as with the best characters, she tries hard to learn from her mistakes. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at St. Martin's Press and an invitation to join the blog tour. Trigger warnings: sexual harassment, slut-shaming (mostly countered on-page, or at least hilariously avenged), divorce, cheating.

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