Listen to This

Lily, Maddie, and Sasha have always been the perfect friendship sandwich—they tell one another everything and each one is vital to making the whole. But this year everything is changing. Everyone seems to be keeping secrets from the others. And Maddie and Sasha made the elite soccer team and Lily didn’t. Now they’re carpooling and practicing and competing all the time, and Lily’s always left behind. They even can’t go to the first big middle school dance—the one that Lily’s been excited about for weeks—because of a tournament. Will she have to go alone? Or miss it entirely? Or . . . is she forming an unexpected brand-new friendship of her own, thanks to popular girl Sienna?

Will tends to keep to himself. After all, his life is already out there for anyone to hear about, thanks to his dad’s super-popular parenting podcast, Dr. Dad. He doesn’t really want to have to talk more about that time he wet the bed when he was small, or any of the other embarrassing stories his dad likes sharing with the whole world. He’d rather focus on becoming a better climber, after school at Philly Rocks. But his path keeps crossing with Lily’s, and his nosy former best friend, Sienna, takes notice. And then Will’s dad finally crosses a line that Will’s not sure he can forgive.

Between disastrous sleepovers, vicious rumors, secret crushes, old and new friends, and parents who just don’t get it, how does anyone make it through the tumult of seventh grade? Told from dual perspectives, Listen to This captures two weeks that just might change everything for Lily and Will, with Jennifer Blecher's signature pitch-perfect dialogue and nuanced understanding of the emotional rollercoaster that is being a tween.