Book 1

Sloppy Firsts

by Megan McCafferty

Published March 2001
When her best friend moves away, sixteen-year-old Jessica is devastated and finds it difficult to deal with the girls at school, her obsessive parents, and her lack of a love life.

Book 2

Second Helpings

by Megan McCafferty

Published 22 April 2003

Senior year has Jessica up in arms again in this hilarious and much-anticipated second book in the New York Times bestselling Jessica Darling series.

This time, the hyperobservant, angst-ridden teenager is going through the social and emotional ordeal of her senior year at Pineville High. Not only does the mysterious and oh-so-compelling Marcus Flutie continue to distract Jessica, but her best friend, Hope, still lives in another state, and she can’t seem to escape the clutches of the Clueless Crew, her annoying so-called friends. To top it off, Jessica’s parents won’t get off her back about choosing a college, and her sister Bethany’s pregnancy is causing a big stir in the Darling household.

With intelligence, wit, and ingenious comedic timing, Megan McCafferty has once again recreated the tumultuous world of modern, fast-moving and sophisticated teens. Fans of Sloppy Firsts will be reunited with their favorite characters and introduced to some fresh new faces that have entered Jess’s life, including the hot creative writing teacher at her summer college prep program and her feisty, tell-it-like-it-is grandmother Gladdie. But most of all, you'll finally have the answers to all of your burning questions, and then some: Will Jessica crack under the pressure of senioritis? Will her unresolved feelings for Marcus wreak havoc on her love life? Will Hope ever come back to Pineville? Fall in love with saucy, irreverent Jessica all over again in this sequel to a book that critics and readers alike hailed as the best high school novel in years.


Book 3

Charmed Thirds

by Megan McCafferty

Published 1 January 2006

Jessica Darling’s in college!

Things are looking up for Jessica Darling. She has finally left her New Jersey hometown/hellhole for Columbia University in New York City; she’s more into her boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, than ever (so what if he’s at a Buddhist college in California?); and she’s making new friends who just might qualify as stand-ins for her beloved best friend, Hope.

But Jessica soon realizes that her bliss might not last. She lands an internship at a snarky Brooklyn-based magazine, but will she fit in with the überhip staff (and will she even want to)? As she and Marcus hit the rocks, will she end up falling for her GOPunk, neoconservative RA . . . or the hot (and married!) Spanish grad student she’s assisting on a summer project . . . or the oh-so-sensitive emo boy down the hall? Will she even make it through college now that her parents have cut her off financially? And what do the cryptic one-word postcards from Marcus really mean?

With hilarious insight, the hyperobservant Jessica Darling struggles through her college years—and the summers in between—while maintaining her usual mix of wit, cynicism, and candor.


Book 4

Fourth Comings

by Megan McCafferty

Published 1 January 2007
Acerbic heroine Jessica Darling is faced with the post-college conundrum -- what now? -- in McCafferty's fourth (following Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings and Charmed Thirds). Her answer is to finally break it off with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, who, after cleaning up his drug habit, studying Buddhism and spending some time in Death Valley, is now at Princeton. But before she can break up with him, he pops the question, and she mulls her response for a week.

Book 5

Perfect Fifths

by Megan McCafferty

Published 1 January 2009

Old flames are reignited in the fifth and final book in the New York Times bestselling Jessica Darling series.

Captivated readers have followed Jessica through every step and misstep: from her life as a tormented, tart-tongued teenager to her years as a college grad stumbling toward adulthood. Now a young professional in her mid-twenties, Jess is off to a Caribbean wedding. As she rushes to her gate at the airport, she literally runs into her former boyfriend, Marcus Flutie. It’s the first time she's seen him since she reluctantly turned down his marriage proposal three years earlier–and emotions run high.

Marcus and Jessica have both changed dramatically, yet their connection feels as familiar as ever. Is their reunion just a fluke or has fate orchestrated this collision of their lives once again?

Told partly from Marcus’s point of view, Perfect Fifths finally lets readers inside the mind of the one person who’s both troubled and titillated Jessica Darling for years. Expect nothing less than the satisfying conclusion fans have been waiting for, one perfect in its imperfection. . . .


Books 1-5