Bye Forever, I Guess

As the best friend of popular, self-absorbed Rachel, Ingrid is used to feeling invisible. But the guarded Virginia eighth grader has a vibrant online life, where she’s built a supportive community via the MMORPG Ancient Tomes Online and her secret blog Bye Forever, I Guess, a compilation of the wrong-number texts she frequently receives. After Rachel humiliates Ingrid in front of new kids Oliver and Alyx, Ingrid decides she’s had enough and drops her. She retreats further into her online life by getting to know Traveler, the anonymous sender of a recent misdirected text. In contrast to her increasingly awkward interactions with Oliver, who has a “strange ability to notice me,” Ingrid and Traveler have an easy, sweet rapport as they chat and play ATO—until she starts suspecting that he may be closer than she thought. Even worse, his initial text may have been meant for Rachel. Interspersing Ingrid’s delightfully snarky narration with chat transcriptions, Meadows (the Salvation Cycle) presents an earnest and laugh-out-loud middle grade debut that’s both a winning exploration of tween friendship and a pitch-perfect paean to fan culture and the thrill of finding one’s community. Main characters default to white. Ages 10–14. Agent: Lauren MacLeod, Aevitas Creative. (Oct.)