The Second Best Friend

Sloane Mercer is the kind of girl who can make you feel special just by choosing the seat beside you.

When seventh grader Callie Morgan catches Sloane's attention, it feels like she's finally been invited into the right circle. Sloane is confident, funny, effortlessly popular, and somehow always knows exactly what to say.

At first, her comments seem harmless.

A little advice about Callie's clothes.
A concerned question about her best friend, Sadie.
A warning about Beckett Hale, the boy Callie definitely does not have a crush on.

But soon Callie is second-guessing her clothes, keeping secrets from Sadie, and questioning people she has trusted for years. The closer she gets to Sloane, the less she recognizes herself.

Then one lie finally cracks the whole thing open.

Callie begins to discover that Sloane hasn't just been manipulating her. She has been telling different stories to different people, carefully keeping everyone suspicious of one another while making herself the person they trust most.

Now Callie has to figure out something much harder than exposing Sloane: how to take responsibility for the choices she made, repair the friendships she hurt, and stop needing someone else's approval to decide who she wants to be.

Funny, sharp, and painfully relatable, The Second Best Friend is a middle-grade novel about friendship, social pressure, betrayal, first crushes, and learning that the right friends never make you audition for your place beside them.