The need for a friend, life in a small town that is a way station to somewhere else, and the reality of families coping with cancer, are all themes in this well plotted magical realism tale. To fill the need for a BFF, Jade, an aspiring writer, has created fictional Zoe, and she records her adventures in a cherished notebook. Heeding the encouragement of her sixth grade English teacher, whose advice is sprinkled throughout the book, Jade takes every chance she can to write about Zoe and Jade, and every day after school, Jade shares her stories with her cancer weakened father, who is in the final days of chemotherapy. The family and school characters are so realistic that the magical realism simply slides into the story unnoticed. All ponds have magic water, and friendship is possible. Definitely recommend!

Jade and her family live in a town where people, including her best friends, come and go all the time. She loves writing and she's longing for a friend so she has decided to write about Zoe, her imaginary best friend. She writes about their perfect days and amazing friendship. One day, a girl named Zoe appears in her class and happens to live across her house. Is it just a coincidence? or is she Jade's imaginary friend comes to life?

Jade is such an incredible character. I loved her passion for writing and her love for her family. I loved her "Oppservation" entries in her journal. She's an aspiring writer which is being supported by her parents and teacher as well. It's just so heartwarming to read. One of the main themes in this book is friendship and the author handled it flawlessly. Same goes with the health condition of Jade's father. It's heartbreaking yet very inspiring. The writing is amazing and age-appropriate as well. The character growth in this book is on point.

I would like to read Clue's perspective or Zoe if possible. I also wanted to know more about the "magical" pond. But we don't get everything we want so it's totally okay for me because I really enjoyed this book. It's a middle-grade novel mixed with magical realism which was right up my alley.

This book reminds us to live in the moment and value the important people around us. This is also a great read for aspiring writers (both young and adult) out there.

*Huge thanks to NetGalley for the earc. This did not affect my overall opinion of the book.

Living in a town, where people frequently come and go, left Jade feeling alone at a time, when she really needed a best friend. Her solution was to create a new bestie, Zoe, but when her new friend emerged from the page into real world, it prompted Jade to consider the complexities of friendship and the role writing took in her life.

• Pro: I could not resist Jade. I felt so much empathy towards her, as she battled her loneliness and sadness due to her father's recurrent cancer, but I also loved her introspection, her affection for her family, and her passion for writing.

• Pro: The entire concept of Jade's Oppservations was a win for me. I adored the idea of reflecting on the dual nature of things. These Oppservations were very keen and revealed a lot about Jade's emotions and worries.

• Pro: The focus on writing as an outlet and a craft was wonderful, and I also liked how this was used to help Jade reflect on her family, friendship, and feelings about everything was was going on in her life.

• Pro: Things had changed for the Levy family following her father's illness, but they still had so much love for one another, and it was a special treat being able to spend time with them all.

• Pro: Friendship was the central focus of this story, as Jade struggled with what it meant to be a friend, have a friend, and share a friend. The idea that you can be friends with someone, but they don't belong to you. It's definitely something that challenged me in my youth, and I felt it was addressed rather well in the story.

• Pro: The book leaned towards fun and upbeat, but having it set in an economically challenged town and containing a subplot of Jade's father's battle with cancer added a bit of weight. That said, it was handled beautifully and with sensitivity, and left me feeling rather happy and hopeful.

Overall: A lovely story of family and friendship with a touch of magic, that was thoughtful and heartwarming.

This was a great middle grade novel about the importance of friendship and family. The characters were easy to relate to and the story kept you wanting to know what was going to happen next. I would definitely recommend Friend or Fiction.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this book beforehand, especially since recently I’m not having a lot of luck with ARCs. But it was this was better than that I had thought!
This book with quite heavy topics, and I think the author did it very well! Especially because this book is for younger readers. I can definitely see how people how are in the same situation can see themselves in this story. I think this is a very important story for young readers!
Besides the disease of Jade’s dad, deals this book also with loneliness. Jade lives in a city where everyone comes and goes, and she struggles with making friends. So she makes her own, on paper. And for some reason she comes alive, now Jade struggles with sharing her perfect friend. Jade learns such important lessons about making friends, and living in the real world, compared to a fictional
one!
This book deals with heavy topics but in a very lite way, and I think for this book it worked so well!
I don’t have that much more to say about this book! It is a good and important story!
I took one star, because in the beginning of the book it was a bit unclear what direction the book would take, and it confused me a bit!

At face value, this is an easy middle grade book about a girl who wants a friend. Someone who doesn’t leave her because she had to go be by her sick dad’s side, someone who she can talk to, share secrets with, and just be friends with. Zoe is, on paper, the best friend.

Jade writes a lot of stories involving her and Zoe, and some of them come to life. What Jade doesn’t expect, however, is that Zoe might just want other things, too. She’s still going to be Jade’s best friend, but she has her own likes and interests too. And Jade doesn’t cope well with that.

If you’re a young kid reading this book, there are parts of the story that will hopefully stick out – like not controlling your friends. You can’t control anyone but yourself, and Jade learns this the hard way. She wants to control Zoe’s very existence right down to who she can sit with at lunch time, and it’s very unhealthy. She’s easily jealous, and it is understandable considering she’s been left by so many friends in the past, which is why she created Zoe in the first place.

This story touches lightly on the hardships of having a parent with cancer/long-term illness, and that can be hard for anyone, but especially young children to have to deal with.

It was an easy, quick read, and has a touch of magic, but that isn’t explored too deeply after Zoe is created.

I enjoyed Jade’s Oppservations throughout the book, too.

I had the opportunity to read a NetGalley digital ARC of this middle grade novel in exchange for a review. I really enjoyed this magical realism story that will challenge readers to consider what makes a good friend.
Sixth grader Jade Levy lives in a town near Denver that sees many residents come and go. Jade has lost several best friends who moved away and never kept in contact. Making her friendless circumstances even more difficult, her father was diagnosed with liver cancer two years prior and her family has been focused on his recovery.
Unwilling to reach out to make any more friends who will probably just be gone tomorrow, Jade turns to her notebook in which she writes about a perfect friendship with a girl named Zoe. In her stories, she and Zoe always have so much fun together and everything is wonderful all the time.
But when one of her classmates figures out a way to bring Zoe out of the pages of Jade’s notebook and into real life, everything changes. Zoe moves into the empty house across the street from Jade and everything that Jade has ever written about her friendship comes true. As exciting as this situation is at first, Jade is uncomfortable when Zoe starts making friends and decisions on her own.
I like that Jade learns so much about just what makes a good friendship and a good relationship. She learns that she can’t be a good friend when she’s trying to control every aspect of Zoe’s life. She has to learn to let go of her controlling attitude, but she also has to let go of fear – fear of losing her friend, fear of losing her dad, fear of not being good enough on her own.
Thomas Merton wrote, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” This really sums up this awesome middle grade read.

Friend or Fiction is the third novel from Abby Cooper, and it debuts on October 8th, 2019. Like her previous books, Sticks & Stones and Bubbles, Friend or Fiction is set in our modern world with one very specific element of magical realism thrown in. (I received a digital ARC of the book through Netgalley. All thoughts are my own.)

Jade has always felt adrift in her small town, and her dad's cancer diagnosis has only made things work. She (and her dad) takes solace in her creative writing about her imagined best friend, Zoe. So when a classmate's experiment brings real life Zoe out of the notebook and into her classroom, Jade couldn't be more thrilled. But is writing your own best friend the same as actually having one ... ?

I thorough enjoyed this amusing novel, and it has a lot to say about the realities of true friendship. I also particularly loved all the winks and nods about the writing process, especially some of the things Zoe doesn't know/have because Jade hadn't thought to include them in the writing. But you'll have to read it for yourself to find out more!

I think readers will really be drawn to the premise of this book ... and they might be surprised at how much it makes them think too!

I was a bit torn about this book through the first half and considered 3 stars, but the more I read the more I realized how many readers will probably connect with Jade. Not every kid has a parent with cancer or deals with friends moving away every year, but all kids can identify with having troubles with their family life and insecurities about friendships. I liked the resolution and I would enjoy reading another book about Jade and her oppservations.

I had imaginary friends as a kid (and older, ngl), so I was very excited to read a book about them! There's endless posibilities for writing imaginary friends, and no set rules. Which played a bit against this book and its characters.
Zoe crossing over to real life felt messy, since everything happened too fast and before I knew it the book was over. I think the author focused too much on Jade's internal monologue and didn't spend enough time studying how Zoe coped with being who she was. Because it was a complex thing! She had no family, virtually no free will, and only a basic understanding of how the world works. We get a sneak peek at just how messed up this is, but I think that could've been explored more and still keep it middle-grade.
The cancer element was harsh af, even more so after Bo's evil guy's reveal. I really appreciated that as a future psychologist, I honestly think that scene can be given to kids as a tool to pick up on preocuppying stuff younger kids may be doing, since us adults aren't always that good noticing that kind of stuff. I don't remember what grade Jade was on, but I thought that catastrophic way of thinking about her dad's cancer was out of place, kind of? Her thinking her dad would relapse if she stopped writing felt way too childish, I would've liked it explored a bit more, or left out altogether. It didn't add much to the story, and sometimes it got in the way of some other subplot waiting to unfold.
The magic element was on point!!!!! The fact that magic can be hidden in places you've never looked at twice before, and that some kids can pick up on it more than others, and that it isn't inherently good or bad but rather a weird blank slate that you have to fill somehow... it's my favorite kind of magic, and I've rarely seen it done well in a middle-grade. Props to you, Abby Cooper!!!
But also, I wish the side characters were explored more, and that's why I would absolutely love to read a sequel, maybe even a YA one. The blooming friendship with the Glitter Girls and Clue at the end absolutely saved the book for me. It felt like the perfect moral of the story. Also there's a lot of room for LGBTQ+ growth, since we also see Clue has two dads, so I would like to see how this queer-friendly environment would come into play as the kids grow up. The fact that their city is just a town people live for a while before moving to Denver would make the existence of a sequel tricky, but long-distance friendships, people moving in and out of town and changing friends are all things that happen, and I would like to see this author's take on them.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Charlesbridge for providing a free advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

All Jade Levy wants is a best friend. Someone she can have fun and be goofy with. Someone who won’t ask difficult questions that Jade doesn’t want to answer. But every best friend she has ever had never stays in Tiveda, Colorado where they live. Tiveda is a place where people stop through to stay a short while and then move on to bigger and better things. Or at least that is how Jade sees it.

But making friends since her last best friend moved away has been hard. Jade created Zoe the main character in her stories and also her best friend. She was able to share her experiences with Zoe with her family. She read them her stories about all of their fun and adventures. Her father loves hearing the tales of Jade and Zoe. But when Clue gets involved Zoe emerges from the pages of Jade’s stories as a real girl. What happens when the best friend from your stories comes to life? Will it be as great as it once was in the stories or will everything change? Can Jade keep from losing this best friend as well.

Jade is a fun, loving character. In her young age she is trying to take care of everyone around her to include herself. Since her father’s diagnosis she has tried to handle all that she can. So her parents aren’t burdened with her troubles. She sees the stories she reads to her father as a part of his medicine. She believed if she stopped reading them to him his illness could get worse. In this sweet, magical story, Jade learns friends aren’t always in the most obvious of places. And helping a friend with things that are emotionally hard is what makes a real friend. This a wonderful story about the importance of friends and family.
Highly recommended for middle school students.

This was a really great read! I really enjoyed reading this book, would definitely recommend. This is a good book for all ages.

I was lucky enough to receive a netgalley arc called Friend or Fiction by Abby Cooper and this is my honest review. Friend or Fiction is middle grade story about a girl called Jade Levy who lives in a town where people come and go and it means that Jade can never keep a best friend. That is until when clue a fellow classmate who Jade dislikes takes her book where she writes about an imaginary best friend then to Jade's surprise a girl sharing the same names as her imaginary friend turns up in her class. Could they be the same person? There is another story which entwines throughout the main story and that is that Jade's dad has liver cancer. I find this part of the book beautifully written and what moved me to tears was that Jade's brother even though he was so young knew what was going on and drew pictures of a bad guy called can sir. There is so much in this book but I don't really want to spoil it for anyone who wishes to read it but what I will say if there are anymore Abby Cooper books I will most definitely be reading them so I am giving this book 4 stars

Netgalley provided an electronic ARC in exchange for honest feedback.

This review will contain spoilers.

I wanted to like this story. It's a clever premise. A lonely girl writes a fictional best friend who then comes to life. Unfortunately, I never really felt engaged in the story. The main character, Jade, was hard to understand and even harder to like. I don't recall the author ever clearly indicating what age Jade is. She may have, but clearly it didn't stick with me. And it might be because at times, the character felt like she was a little kid, totally oblivious to everyone around her and misunderstanding very obvious stuff, and at other times she felt like a teenager, wise beyond her years.

For instance, Jade holds a grudge against a kid named Clue for some mysterious reason for what he did to her, which is alluded to for a third of the book. But then when this slight is explained, it's the fact that Clue was standing motionless in one of the chemotherapy rooms at the hospital and wouldn't let Jade's father use it. That's it. That's the horrible thing he did to her, for which she demonizes him for a third of the book. Like, what kid whose own parent is in cancer treatment wouldn't clue in to the fact that someone else in the cancer ward probably isn't maliciously withholding access to a particular room just to be mean? Is she totally oblivious? It was frustrating. I wanted to like Jade, but she just seemed on this occasion and several others, like a self-centered jerk.

And this brings me to the biggest problem with the book. Clue has figured out that the pond in town has magical waters. He uses those waters to bring Jade's fictional friend to life. Cool! Except at no time did either Jade or Clue really question how the magic worked. Clue's sister died of cancer. Jade's father is very sick with cancer. Why did neither of these kid so much as think, hmmm, I wonder if the magical pond water might CURE CANCER? Like, seriously. I was so frustrated and distracted by this question for the entirety of the book. And it would be easy enough for the author to deal with it in some way, but she just... didn't. Why?

I have a lot of other questions about how the magic works, too. This fictional kid, Zoe, just appears and starts eating dinner with Jade's family every night. Doesn't Jade's mom think that's a little weird? Zoe appears at school one day but she doesn't have any parents to enroll her. How does that work? Does no one at the school notice? Zoe eats lunch every day at school, but again, she doesn't have parents (or furniture or anything else) so where does her lunch come from? Jade realizes at one point that she forgot to give Zoe parents or furniture or anything resembling a real home life and then she just blows it off as no big deal. Again, so incredibly selfish and self-centered. Like, oh cool, my best friend has nowhere to sleep at night and no one to look after her and she's just standing around in an empty house in the dark, by herself, with nothing to eat, but no big deal... Seriously? And then when Jade finally learns her life lesson, she just sort of releases Zoe, allowing her to make her own decisions, and then Zoe disappears. Jade and Clue don't do anything with the magic to send her back where she came from. The fictional kid just... what? evaporates? runs away from home? ceases to exist? I just... I don't understand how any of it works. The magic doesn't make any sense to me and it really killed my ability to submerge myself in this fictional world.

The writing is good. The life lessons were age-appropriate. I didn't hate it. I just didn't understand any of it and so none of it landed for me.

I found this a little repetitive in parts but I think it wouldn't be as noticeable for the intended audience (age 10-13).

Jade realises over time that maybe best friends don't need to have the perfect friendship and like all of the same things whilst only wanting to be around each other. They can still be your best friend even if they like different foods, want to spend time with other friends and have different interests.

This book would be good for pre-teens to understand that they don't have to change themselves to be liked. When they are themselves, they will attract the right best friend as faking your personality or changing who you are will only make you feel more alone.

Pretty solid middle grade option. Deals nicely with issues both common (feeling like the odd one out, not being part of a best friend pair) and more specialized (parent with cancer, figuring out how to allow your best friend to have their own life). Realistic without being overly scary or overly sentimental.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get into this one. I couldn't connect with the characters or the story. I think if I had read it younger I would have enjoyed it much more

When I read about this book I was concerned that I would not like the magical realism piece. However, it worked because how impossible and unrealistic it is to depend on one person to meet all of a person's friendship needs.

Making friends is always hard, and Jade finds it so, too. Her bestie is in a big yellow notebook; her name's Zoe. Imagination is not something Jade lacks, so she can imagine all the fun she and Zoe can have.
This is the story of how to see and make friends with those around you, those waiting for you to look. Clue is one these people waiting. With a bit of magic, he makes Jade's wish come true - Zoe gets to live and be an in-real-life friend for Jade. However, Jade soon learns that it's harder than she thought to control every aspect of a friendship, and that being yourself and letting your friends be themselves will lead to a healthy friendship.

There are other deep aspects in the novel: Jade's sadness that people don't seem to stick for long in her town, her father's illness, her striving to be a better and better writer listening to Mrs. Yang's tips, her English teacher. All these add depth and by the end of the novel, Jade is more mature and sure of herself and her place in the school and in her family.

I absolutely adored this, and I think it's perfect for every middle grade student, but not only. A good starting point for discussions as well.

I really enjoyed this book, and Jade's journey. She makes mistakes, and seems quite controlling at times, but I felt like she learnt from it all and grew a lot by the end of the book. Jade is a typical young girl, feeling lost and confused, and forcing herself to cope on her own without being able to rely on her parents or a friend for help. As the reader, you can understand her desperation for a friend. I wish she had treated Clue a little better earlier in the book and realised that he could have been a good friend to her. I think this book is relatable and definitely one I would recommend to my students.