It was lunchtime, and obviously I was starving, but as Olivia and I walked toward the caf, we got stopped. MY STOMACH GROWLED SO LOUDLY, I was sure other kids could hear it in the school hallway. But what boy would ever choose a warthog over a gazelle? Read more Now that Olivia’s caught Tyler’s attention, Kat has to wonder if she’s fooled Tyler into falling for the wrong girl. And to her delight-or maybe horror-her plan begins to work.

From writing “Tyler cheat sheets” listing his favorite things, to feeding Olivia lines through her headphones during Tyler-focused study sessions, Kat devises schemes by which Tyler will fall for Olivia. Trying to be a good friend and squash her own feelings, Kat makes it her mission to get the two of them together. But since Kat’s one of Tyler’s oldest friends, Olivia’s sure she’ll know how to get his attention. When Olivia confesses that she has a crush on Tyler and wants to ask him to the Fall Ball dance, Kat knows there’s going to be a problem: Tyler thinks Olivia is just another ditsy girl who only cares about lip gloss and boy bands. Suddenly the person Kat’s used to playing Xbox with is causing her stomach to do cartwheels. Plus, Tyler, Kat’s next-door neighbor and buddy since birth, morphed into a really cute boy over the summer. Braces-wearing, manga-loving, uncoordinated Kat is a warthog.

In the jungle that is middle school, Olivia is a gazelle. It doesn’t help that her best friend and cousin, Olivia, grew a foot over the summer and won a spot on the school’s dance team, shooting her up on the popularity scale. Twelve-year-old Kat woos the boy next door on behalf of her best friend, and in the process realizes that true beauty-and true confidence-comes from the inside in this hilarious M!X novel from the author of Small Medium at Large.

Crushing it joanne levy