Totally Crushed

February 15, 2017
Following series opener Project (Un)Popular (2016), 12-year-old Perry once again finds herself in trouble for trying to help the school geeks become popular.Her best friend, Venice, is distracted by her boyfriend. Her sister is evolving into a militant humanist vegan, and her parents refuse to allow her access to social media. Perry feels increasingly lost, but at least yearbook seems to be looking up. Anya, the back-stabbing photography editor, has been replaced by the uber-organized Javier. But while Perry wanted more responsibility, the load Javier places on her threatens to crush her. Soon Anya's undermining her again, her sister's got an insane idea to run off to Thailand, and a boy is crushing on her, all of which brings Perry to a breaking point. When she finally obtains access to PopRat, she decides to use the social media app to clear the air--but somehow, it makes everything a whole lot worse. The cast is somewhat racially diverse, but, Latino Javier excepted, the principals seem to be white. While the drama of crushes, frenemies, and hovering parents is spot-on, the portrayal of adults as clueless is over-the-top. Awkward dialogue and one-dimensional characters further hamper the story. But it is Perry's tendency to hyperanalyze everything that suggests the drama is more within than without. Exhausting and (un)crushworthy. (Fiction. 9-13)

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June 1, 2017

Gr 5-8-"Yearbooks last forever. They are one of the few things you will keep until the day you die." This second installment in Tracy's "Project (Un)Popular" series revolves around the school yearbook, a first-period class and yearlong project that (according to the narrative) will outlast unfortunate videos gone viral, unflattering selfies, and unkind comments on PopRat, the current hot social media platform. The action picks up days after the previous novel leaves off. It's October, and already sixth graders 12-year-old Perry and her best friend, Venice, have survived a revenge prank gone wrong and a week of detention. As junior photographer for the yearbook, Perry is called on to shoot all of the faculty and student photos, and highlights of the school Halloween party. Her current life goal is to make even the "nerdiest nerd who ever tripped down our school's hallway" look good in the yearbook. While Perry occasionally muses about accepting people for who they are and following her own path, these sentiments are drowned out by her near constant whining, judgmental comments, and utterly self-absorbed thoughts about everything and everyone around her. Perry's teachers, parents, and older sister are supportive but only vaguely sketched characters. The "crush" mentioned in the title is one-sided until the last few pages, setting the stage for more from Perry and her crew. The highs and lows of middle school communication in the digital age are better explored in Rebecca Stead's Goodbye, Stranger and Rachel Vail's Well, That Was Awkward. VERDICT Purchase only where the first volume was, well, popular.-Jennifer Costa, Cambridge Public Library, MA

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