McCafferty, Megan. Charmed Thirds. Wednesday Books, 2021 (reprint). ISBN 978-1250781833 528 pp. $9.99

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Although third in a series, this new novel contains many firsts for our New Jersey heroine and sarcastic queen of quips: first time making nice with her sister, first internship, first love (continued). We find our darling Jessica well into sophomore year at Columbia, sex starved and missing reformed bad boy Marcus, who has gone all Buddhist, becoming more unreadable than ever. The book takes us sporadically through Jessica’s college years, tracking major and heartrending experiences. Readers will cheer to see obligatory letters to Hope (doing well at RSID, thankyouverymuch), snide asides,  and invented vocabulary that are quintessential McCafferty; new gems include Poetry Spam (haikus created from junk email), Google stalking, and continued worship for all things ‘80’s. 

Too many allusions to past events will send new readers searching for other titles in the series.

This is a book to champion from the relative safety of the adult collection. After all it took for Jessica to finally hook up with Krispy Kreme, her ad nauseum raving about her newfound sexuality is healthy but occasionally delves into the TMI zone. As I recommended with the other two books in the series, plop it in adult fiction – the fans will find it.