Jessica Darling's It List: The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection

Product Information

By high school, Jessica Darling has pretty much comes to terms with her role in the social hierarchy and that she will never be the most popular girl in school. In middle school, Jessica's still trying to be what she's not. The series title, Jessica Darling's It List, is actually a bit misleading. In fact, this is Bethany's It List. Jessica's much older sister Bethany, in a rare instance of sisterly feeling, has decided to help Jessica avoid the curse of dorkdom by passing down the patented method for achieving popularity. Unsurprisingly, the It List does not work so well for Jessica. Things are looking up for Jessica Darling. She has finally left her New Jersey hometown/hellhole for Columbia University in New York City; she’s more into her boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, than ever (so what if he’s at a Buddhist college in California?); and she’s making new friends who just might qualify as stand-ins for her beloved best friend, Hope. McCafferty published a Jessica Darling short story called "Fifteen Going On ..." in a 2004 anthology called Sixteen: Stories About That Sweet and Bitter Birthday, which she also edited. [3] Controversy [ edit ] My main points of contention with this review would be the strategy behind it. From McCafferty’s POV, it makes sense – she’ll capture existing Jessica Darling fans (like me) who want more from this beloved character, even if it’s juvenile fun. She’ll also recruit new fans that are maybe a touch too young for the regular series’ decidedly mature focus and tone. And maybe just maybe, some parents out there are Jessica Darling fans and have children that are old enough to be introduced to the series themselves. I love the original Jessica Darling books to a ridiculous and possibly unhealthy degree. This is a prequel to those books (which begin when she's in high school and follow her through to early adulthood) and our Jess is in middle school.

The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection is the middle school version of Mean Girls, I swear. I can even cast them for you. Bridget would be the obvious choice for Regina George since she's the prettiest and most popular seventh grader, but she's actually more of a Karen Smith, because she doesn't really know what's going on a lot of the time and is very easily led. Manda is the Regina. She even makes up slang (mondo) and decides when it's over. Sara, though she wants to be a queen bee, is Gretchen Wieners, a born follower, who does everything Manda says and always will, even though she resents Regina's treatment of her. Jessica's the Cady and Hope is Janis/Damian, only they could never care enough to make Jessica into the evil popular girl, and Jessica would never want Burke Roy, the Aaron Samuels figure. Also, I'm sure you all didn't need to know all of that, but, whatever, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION. Learning her Grandma is staying over for eighteen days, Jessica is excited to be able to bake sweet treats with her grandma and get her advice on her friend situations. It List #2 also has amazingly accurate descriptions of girls' mind games, and how they hurt and change people. Truth be told, it reminded me a lot of the movie Mean Girls, because the representation of just how these games are played is so spot-on:

Personalized picks at your fingertips

Hope then being her new best friend really, confides in Jess about her period coming and that being why she acted oddly at Jess's sleepover. Jess feels happy knowing she's a trusted friend and realises being a slow developer body wise may not be a bad thing after all. Fans of the original books will appreciate the further focus on Hope and her brother, Heath, in this installment. I personally would have liked to have seen more of Heath, particularly because I know what happens to him later on, but I can also see why that stuff might be too heavy for a middle-grade novel. Regardless, Jessica and Hope's blossoming friendship is really fun to read and made me believe in their strong connection way more than the original series ever did. There are some differences between the book and the movie, but they are minor. For example, the movie takes place during the summer before Jessica’s freshman year of high school, while the book takes place during the school year. The movie also leaves out some of the subplots from the book, but it still captures the essence of the book in a way that is true to Megan McCafferty’s vision. Parents Guide, True Story, Locations, When It Takes Place, and Ending The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection is a fabulous start to Jessica Darling's It List series. Fans of the original Jessica Darling series will love this glimpse into pre-teen Jessica's life and mind! Just finished watching this film with my girls. We LOVED it. I have a 12-year old and a 16 year old. My 16 year old reflected her own middle school years and could relate to Jessica and Bridget’s struggles. She also had her fair share of dealings with the “Manda’s” and the “Sarah’s” of the world and wound up meeting a “Hope” and just like Jessica she continued her friendship with a “Bridget,” but their friendship was never as close as it was in elementary school. The film is a preparation for what my 12-year can expect and experience for her own middle school years.

The best part of this for me is seeing Jessica and her friends, seeing how she first encounters Hope and Marcus Flutie, two people who (we know) will be a huge part of her life going forward.So, yes. Jessica Darling's It List is something we've all seen before. Nerdy 7th Grader feels pressured to be popular by her friends, her sister and her sort of awful mother. In the end, she of course learns that she will like her life, and the kinds of friends she makes better, if she just acts like herself. See, Jessica, intelligent though she is, does not excel at pretending to be something she is not. Her half-hearted attempts end up fooling no one. Jessica's a bit of a dork and a teacher's pet, and there's no changing that. If she doesn't care about boys, she won't pretend to and she has trouble caring about her friends' woes over such things either. In fact, her biggest seventh grade fails occur when she stops being Jessica, like when she signs up for CHEER TEAM!!!, which she does not have the spirit for. Repeat after me: This is not the same universe as Sloppy Firsts Jessica Darling. This is not the same universe as Sloppy Firsts Jessica Darling.

As with the first book in this series, I enjoyed seeing appearances of characters who'd go on to be major players in the original series about Jessica's high school years. This was a very cute read and I enjoyed Jessica's narration in here. I'm pretty sure that everyone had some of her thoughts while in junior high, trying to figure out where they belong. One of the parts that seemed pretty spot-on featured Jessica musing about how everyone but her seemed to know what the "important" stuff was for the junior high social scene and why didn't she automatically know too? I also loved the depiction of the relationship drama, with Jessica having a three-line exchange with a "friend's" boyfriend and that friend immediately thinking Jessica must have been flirting. What I liked most about It List #2 is that it isn't preachy about how to navigate these problems, and there really are no right answers. Jessica gains a lot of wisdom about how to be a friend, but I think what she ultimately comes away with is more of a feeling that it is OKAY for friendships to change, and it's okay for her to not understand. She can just let people be and try her best to be a good friend. This is the second It List book, featuring Jessica Darling (of Sloppy Firsts fame) in middle school. Seventh grade is underway and she's still trying to fit in, continuing on from where the first book left off. Her older sister provides her with a how-to list about making friends and being popular, and Jessica somehow ends up hosting a sleepover that doesn't quite turn out as planned.

Did we miss something on diversity?

In Sloppy Firsts, the original Jessica Darling book, Jessica is seriously depressed, but also completely self-aware and precocious. It List shows us Jessica before that depression, when Bridget is her best friend and they've really grown up getting each other through everything. Twelve-year old Jessica is pretty self-aware, but she's also way more optimistic, accepting, and loving of her family than her sixteen-year old self. Julie Sherman Wolfe wrote the screenplay for Ali Scher’s Jessica Darling’s It List, and he does an excellent job of bringing the story to life on the big screen. It's more fun reading it after having read Jessica's later adventures (although, those titles are NOT appropriate for the middle schoolers this title is intended for), but I think 5th grade girls and up will still enjoy Jessica's misadventures and sharp wit. She's just the sort of girl who you want for a friend.