Series:

The Secret Language of Girls Trilogy

5 total works 3 total works planned

Cover of The Kind of Friends We Used to Be
Edgar Award–winning novelist Frances O’Roark Dowell explores the shifting terrain of middle-school friendship in this follow-up to the beloved The Secret Language of Girls. Kate and Marylin are smack dab in the middle of middle school—seventh grade—and they know they can never be best friends like they used to be. Marylin is a middle school cheerleader obsessed with popularity and hairstyles, and Kate is the exact opposite with her combat boots and hankering to learn guitar and write her own songs. Still, Kate and Marylin yearn to find some middle ground for their friendship—but it’s harder than they ever imagined.

Cover of The Secret Language of Girls
Marylin and Kate have been friends since nursery school, but when Marylin becomes a middle school cheerleader and Kate begins to develop other interests, their relationship is put to the test.

Cover of The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away
In the conclusion to the bestselling Secret Language of Girls trilogy, Marylin and Kate find that boys can be just as complicated as friendship.

Marylin knows that, as a middle school cheerleader, she has certain obligations. She has to smile as she walks down the hall, be friends with the right people, and keep her manicure in tip-top shape. But Marylin is surprised to learn there are also rules about whom she’s allowed to like—and Benjamin, the student body president, is deemed unnacceptable. But maybe there is a way to convince the cheerleaders that her interest in Benjamin is for their own good—maybe she’ll pretend that she’s using him to get new cheerleading uniforms!

Kate, of course, finds this ludicrous. She is going to like whom she likes, thank you very much. And she just so happens to be spending more time than ever with Matthew Holler. But even a girl who marches to the beat of her own guitar strings can play the wrong notes—and are she and Matthew even playing the same song? She’s just not sure. So when Matthew tells Kate that the school’s Audio Lab needs funding from the student government, she decides to do what she can to help him get it.

But there isn’t enough money to go around, and it soon becomes clear that only one of the two girls can get her way. Ultimately, though, is it even her way? Or are both girls pushing for something they never really wanted in the first place?

Cover of Kind Friends We Used to Be
Edgar Award-winning novelist Frances O'Roark Dowell explores the shifting terrain of middle-school friendship in this follow-up to the beloved The Secret Language of Girls. Kate and Marylin are smack dab in the middle of middle school--seventh grade--and they know they can never be best friends like they used to be. Marylin is a middle school cheerleader obsessed with popularity and hairstyles, and Kate is the exact opposite with her combat boots and hankering to learn guitar and write her own songs. Still, Kate and Marylin yearn to find some middle ground for their friendship--but it's harder than they ever imagined.

Cover of The Secret Language of Girls Trilogy (Boxed Set)
Middle school friendships can be complicated, but if anyone understands the secret language of girls, it's bestselling author Frances O'Roark Dowell in this collectible boxed set of a perceptive and relatable trilogy.

Marylin and Kate used to be best friends, but middle school has a funny knack for getting in the way. Can two girls who grew up together, but have vastly different interests, stay friends forever?

This boxed set of Frances O'Roark Dowell's widely praised trilogy includes all three installments of Marylin and Kate's rollercoster friendship: The Secret Language of Girls, The Kind of Friends We Used to Be, and The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away.