Friend Group

After she is accidentally added to her classmates’ private group chat, an enterprising seventh grader plots her way into their crew in this frothy comedy from Greenwald (The Summer of the Fortune Tellers). Sadie and Olive have been best friends since birth. As middle school begins, Sadie yearns to expand their social circle, aspiring to join the ranks of the queen of their grade, also named Sadie. While Olive admits that she isn’t sure that she wants more friends, Sadie privately believes that Olive won’t fit in with the in crowd. When Sadie ends up in a group chat with popular Sadie and her friends, the protagonist resolves to keep her presence hidden, intending to use knowledge gleaned from the texts to study the other girls from the inside. Suddenly, she knows exactly what to wear to school and is at the forefront of the new matcha fad, much to Olive’s consternation. Via Sadie’s humorously self-centered narration, peppered with perceptive text conversations, Greenwald showcases an expert command for tween parlance and respect for tween preoccupations, coalescing into a meandering, slice-of-life offering. Characters cue as white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Birch Path Literary. (May)