This sequel to The Kind of Friends We Used to Be (2009) and The Secret Language of Girls (2004), both published by Atheneum, follows friends Marylin and Kate through the second half of seventh grade. The former best friends have found some common ground once again despite their vastly differing interests and styles. Both are struggling with how to balance internal desires with outside pressures and expectations, with boys complicating the picture for each of them. Marylin isn't comfortable with her fellow cheerleaders' pressure to give up things and people she cares about. She likes being popular, but is it worth such a high price? Kate, critical of Marylin for succumbing to the pressure, realizes she's done the same thing when she abandons a friend's proposal for a school project to help her maybe boyfriend with another-one she doesn't believe is as worthy. Frances O'Roark Dowell continues to develop these two characters whose successes and failures will be recognizable to many readers. While the cheerleaders in the novel are unfortunate stereotypes, Kate and Marilyn are distinct and realistic characters-two girls who are gradually becoming more confident in being true to themselves. (Ages 10-13)