Best Friends for Never

by Adrienne Maria Vrettos Narrated by Emily Eiden

Overview

When a friendship pact goes magically awry, eleven-year-old Hattie must figure out how to make amends.

After Hattie and her three best friends watch one of their classmates publicly defriended in the school cafeteria, they make a loyalty pact promising never to mistreat each other. But after Hattie unwittingly breaks the pact, her friends begin ignoring her. In fact, they literally don't even know who she is anymore! Can Hattie figure out how to break the spell and make things right again?Acclaimed author Adrienne Vrettos brings poignancy and gentle humor to this magical story of friendship and loyalty.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

02/29/2016
After moving from Brooklyn to small-town Massachusetts, Hattie makes friends with a trio of girls who are a few notches down from the “tippy-top of the sixth-grade popularity pyramid.” To fit in and avoid being labeled a nerd, Hattie hides her obsession with a fantasy book series, her love of cat-themed T-shirts, and her disdain for team sports, a deception that renders her a victim of a mysterious “jinx” that has long plagued the town. For Hattie, the curse has consequences with echoes of Groundhog Day and It’s a Wonderful Life: each day she must reintroduce herself to her closest friends, who have no memory of who she is. Vrettos (Burnout) makes good use of an entertaining premise to dig into middle-school pettiness and social politics as Hattie bonds with the school’s dethroned queen bee and with an insightful teenage girl who works at the local historical society, where Hattie searches for the secret to reversing the jinx. Writing with a light touch, Vrettos balances universal adolescent topics of self-honesty, acceptance, and stereotypes. Ages 8–12. Agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary. (May)

School Library Journal

04/01/2016
Gr 3–5—A lighthearted middle school story with a magical twist. When quirky, nerdy Hattie moves from Brooklyn to the posh town of Trepan's Grove, MA, she leaves her true personality behind, fearing that her new friends won't accept her love of "Tilde's Realm" (a fantasy book series) and cat T-shirts. Piper, Fee, and Celeste give Hattie a crash course in all things Trepan's Grove: the clothing, the lingo, the traditions, and the importance of being popular. When the foursome witness the queen bee's fall from grace, they sign a friendship pact at the annual Harvest Festival, promising never to lie or gossip about one another. Problem is, Hattie has been lying all along. When some Harvest Festival magic takes over, Hattie is cursed—each day her friends forget who she is and she must rebuild their friendship from the beginning. Hattie must enlist the help of some surprising companions in order to win back her friends. VERDICT Though a little contrived, this pleasant story about friendship and personal authenticity will resonate with any young person struggling with being true to themselves or facing an upcoming move to a new school.—Tiffany Davis, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, NY

Kirkus Reviews

2016-03-30
Moving to small-town Massachusetts from Brooklyn wasn't easy for 12-year-old narrator Hattie, but she lucked into a group of friends fairly quickly.So what if she can't reveal her fantasy nerddom or her fondness for cat T-shirts? Playing field hockey and the zip zip zip sound of corduroys are a small price to pay for friends. Hattie's so horrified at the public defriending of queen-bee Zooey that she draws up a Friendship Pact—triggering a jinx that causes her pals to completely forget her. With the unlikely help of Zooey and prickly teen genius Maude, she struggles to undo the jinx. Vrettos gets a lot right in her middle-grade debut, most particularly the middle schooler's yearning and need to belong. But her command of voice and characterization is weak; would the same kid who, believably, favors "weird" as a catchall adjective also quote Zola? The white Brooklynite misses her Dominican friend but never remarks on well-to-do Trepan's Grove's evident lack of diversity (Maude is the only significant character of color), and a possible examination of class fizzles. The device of the jinx is initially effective, but its execution feels made up as the author went along, much like Maude, a character whose rich but unexplored back story tantalizes.In the end the book feels as though it needed a couple more drafts to pull all its elements into balance. (Magical realism. 8-12)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170508426
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/10/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

From Best Friends for Never"Piper?" I ask tentatively when she answers the phone. "It's Hattie." "Hattie?" she asks, the same blank voice as this morning. "Yes. Hattie," I say firmly. "Your best friend." "I'm sorry, I ..." "You know me, Piper. Remember, we met at the town pond in August? You bought me a purple popsicle and your little sister took a giant bite of it when I sat down on your beach towel." Piper laughs. "That's totally something Peanut would do, but I don't really remember ..." "I'm tall, Piper, and I have short curly hair and I wear glasses and I'm afraid of bugs with more than six legs and I help you with math and you help me Spanish and ..." "Wait!" I stop talking, hold my breath. "Are you the new girl from lunch today at school?" "You remember me?" "Yeah, you sat down next to me and started bawling. Are you okay?" I frantically scan my room, looking for something my eyes can rest on that will calm me, and I catch sight of the strip of photo booth pictures we took at the Festival. "Piper?" I ask, my voice shaking. "Yeah?" "What did you do on Saturday?" I walk slowly toward my mirror. Rain bats against the window. "I went to the Festival, why?" I slip the strip of photos out from the mirror frame and stare at them. "Who did you go with?" "Who did I go with to the Festival? My friends Celeste and Fee. Why?" "No reason," I say softly, already hanging up the phone up. I stare hard at the pictures. In them, I am alone.

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