Hopkins, Cathy

Fourteen-year-old Becca, having backed out of auditioning for the school musical, is challenged to enter the Pop Princess contest and finds herself wondering about her priorities as she moves up the ranks and becomes totally caught up in the competition.

Fourteen-year-old Lucy finds herself desperately in need of a self-esteem boost when she is completely stumped by a class writing assignment, gets a bad haircut, and decides her physical development is lacking in comparison with her friends.

An English teenager named Nesta falls for an upper-class boy, learns that her mother's work contract may not come through, and begins to wonder if she can compete with his rich friend Cressida for his attention.

Izzie, bright, cool, and sassy, loses all perspective after meeting the gorgeous Mark and begins spending all her time at home waiting by the phone for him to call.

Izzie, always a bit curvy, picks up some pounds over the holidays and becomes so obsessed with losing weight that she forgets all the good things going on in her life.

Nesta's friendship with T.J. is strained when Luke, the boy whom Nesta has been dating, develops an interest in T.J.

Lucy, the only one of her friends without a boyfriend, meets a perfect guy, but soon begins to feel that she is being smothered by too much love.

Theresa Joanne (T.J. To her friends) has a difficult year when her best friend moves away, her brother leaves home, and boys treat her like a friend and do not notice that she is a girl. When Lucy befriends her, things start to look up.

Nesta, devastated when she has to wear braces, refuses to be comforted by her friends, but attracting Luke's attention goes a long way to restoring her confidence.

Collects "Mates, Dates and Sleepover Secrets, " in which TJ's best friend moves away and the boys refuse to see her as female; "Mates, Dates, and Sole Survivors, " that depicts Lucy in a new relationship; and in "Mates, Dates, and Mad Mistakes, " Izzie asks for trouble when she wants to be a grown-up.