Mia’s Boiling Point: This takes a well-treaded upon subject. Mean girls. But there are different types of mean girls and Olivia Allen is lying, using drama queen. She’s the type whose charismatic so Mia is inadvertedly drawn to her web with their shared love of fashion and Mia understanding the perils of being a new girl gives her too many benefits of the doubt. But Simon does an excellent job in depicting the separation between sneaky insults and genuine mistakes and setting boundaries when splitting from the mean girl’s web and her potential wrath.

Mia Measures Up: Another Mia, also dealing with mean girls and bullying but I enjoy it because Simons keeps it realistic with minimum preachiness in dealing with the “new” subject of cyber-bullying in the increasingly digital age. Mia is getting blasted for her clothes, her sweetness, basically everything which hurts obviously. It also presents a problem as she just promised her mother that she is a responsible young adult, if she can’t nip this in a bud, her mother is sure to treat her like a kid forever. Morgan presents a balanced way of handling tech and bullying responsibly without outright banning phones or telling kids just to ignore the haters. It’s well done.

Emma, Lights! Camera! Cupcakes!: As readers will already know Emma was discovered and hired as a model and potential actress under the wing of Hollywood superstar, Romaine Ford and now Ms. Ford is back asking the Cupcake Club to bake the desserts for her wedding and for her movie premiere. The catch is, she’s not allowed to tell the rest of the club. I don’t know what it was exactly but the glamour and juggling of jobs ontop of slight friendship problems when the girls get miffed with Emma’s secrecy, but it all reminds me of the old Babysitter’s Club books. Friendship, twists and slightly unrealistic glamourous scenario with small town group of teens but it’s all just so enjoyable you go with it.

Katie and the Cupcake Cure: An excellent intro that gets a spot thanks to nostalgia goggles. I just enjoy how SImon seamlessly creates the premise, the origin story, if you will of the girls coming together and the struggles of starting a business. Also reminds me of the BSC. I’m sensing a pattern here.

Emma All Stirred Up!: Here, we switch things up with a location change at summer camp where Emma has major family problems. After taking care of her kid brother for most of the schol year, now he’s coming to camp with her. She needs some space but soon comes to appreciate her little brother more and resent the responsibility less. What can I say? I’m a sucker for sibling bonding. I also enjoy how Emma also learns to deal with stage fright, plus the skit she and the girls came up with was quite cute.