MORE EVENTS TO COME. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ASK ME. I love meeting readers, talking about writing and breaking into song. If you’d like me to do any of these things for your store, school, festival or other miscellaneously awesome organization email megan@meganmccafferty.com and let’s make it happen! I have different presentations appropriate for all ages, from elementary school through university.
“Whenever she’s gets close to figuring out middle school—BAM!—she’s hit with another ‘WHAT THE HECK?!’ moment. For Jessica Darling, growing up is a comedy of trials and many, many errors.”
“Jessica Darling is both an insider and an outsider. She notices things, she thinks too much, and sometimes she doesn’t think enough. She’s flawed and she makes mistakes, and I think it’s those mistakes that make her relatable.”
“This series is for the 10 and up reader who is meeting Jessica Darling for the first time…I would love my older readers to read it and then give it to the tween in their lives and say, ‘Here’s this great girl, Jessica Darling. She was one of my favorites growing up and now you can read her, too.”
“I’m inspired to write middle grade fiction by the tweens in my real life, including my son, his friends, my friends’ daughters, and my nieces. I also volunteer at my son’s school library so I hear first-hand what kids care about—in books and beyond. They remind me that their passions and preoccupations aren’t all that different than mine when I was their age. I keep that in mind as I’m writing. That’s it.”
Entertainment Weekly “Check Out The Cover for Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling Prequel!”
“People have asked me if I saw myself continuing Jessica’s story and quite honestly I don’t. I don’t see myself writing beyond Perfect Fifths. I agree with you: I love the way that story ends; it’s exactly how I wanted it to be. But this is different: It’s deepening a story without messing with the ending.”
“My long lost friend Jessica Darling is back! I feel so lucky to have a peek into her middle school years in Megan McCafferty’s sparkly new series. How I’ve missed you so, Jessica Darling!”
–Jenny Han, New York Times bestselling author of the Summer series and Shug
“Jessica Darling won’t really tell you how to be popular; instead she’ll mock and subvert the entire middle-school popularity system while you laugh hysterically. Trust me, you’ll adore her ten different ways.”
“Not only were books three, four, and five bestsellers, but Jessica and her fictional friends have spawned fan fiction, more than one Jessica Darling-themed Tumblr, and even a tribute video set to Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You.”
What gets readers hooked on this character? Ask McCafferty’s editor, Elizabeth Bewley, a longtime fan who has been a Jessica Darling fan since reading Sloppy Firsts not long after it came out. She cited Jessica’s sense of humor and personality quirks; this is a character who says her number one hobby is “thinking about things,” after all. “I also love that she is sort of a salty and sweet character,” Bewley said. “She has her moments where she is not proud of herself for decisions that she’s made. And I think that most of us can relate to that.”