Summary: Jessica Darling is a senior now, and she's making the hard choices about where to go to college and what she wants out of life. She's still dealing with the fallout of a broken heart, dating her academic rival, and dealing with an anonymous and accurate school gossip ezine. Once again, the reader is privy to Jessica's thoughts through her diary.

Review: After getting to know Jessica Darling in Sloppy Firsts, I was really rooting for her in this novel. I desperately wanted her to make the right choice for college. There is still plenty of candor, insight and humor, but Jessica's reactions to the September 11th attacks still surprised me. I'm curious to know how these events affected McCafferty's story: were they an impetus or did they help shift the story to accommodate timeliness? It's impossible not to compare the two novels, and Second Helpings takes everything wonderful from Sloppy Firsts and makes it better. Jessica is smart, funny, ironic and vulnerable, and all of these things make her absolutely delightful to read about. ( )

Reviewed by Amanda Dissinger for TeensReadToo.com

In SLOPPY FIRSTS, Jessica Darling dealt with adjusting to life without her best friend, Hope, having feelings for the school rebel, Marcus, and finding who she really is as a person. You know, typical teenager stuff.

In the sequel to SLOPPY FIRSTS, SECOND HELPINGS, Jess finds herself dealing with even more problems as she starts her senior year of high school. After spending the summer at SPECIAL, a summer writing camp for (you guessed it) special high school students, Jess decides that she wants to 1). become a writer and 2). attend the prestigious Columbia University in New York City.

The only problem is that she now has the tough job of convincing her parents.

With Len Levy, her brilliant competition for Valedictorian, crushing on her, and her determination to get over Marcus with only the help of her blonde Barbie doll neighbor, Bridget, Jess gets more than she bargains for as she struggles to plan her future and rediscover her past.

In my opinion, SECOND HELPINGS is even better than the terrific prequel SLOPPY FIRSTS. Through her shocking and entertaining observations about everything from her high school peers to "hot" writing instructors, readers identify with Jess's plights as she tries to reach her dream of getting out of New Jersey suburbia. Another touching book, another realistic story, another fantastic read from Megan McCafferty. ( )

My favorite book of the series! ( )

This book just builds on the first book. It's amazing and snarky. ( )

We open Megan McCafferty's Second Helpings to discover that in a fit of self-loathing, high school senior Jessica has destroyed the diary which stood as a shrine to her obsession with one Marcus Flutie — the text of Sloppy Firsts. After their non-relationship came to a very abrupt end on New Year’s Eve at the end of the first novel, I wasn’t quite sure where we would find Jess and Marcus at the onset of this installment . . . and we found them nowhere, really. As Jess is away for the summer at a creative writing camp and ardently refusing to think and/or talk about Marcus as anyone other than He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned, we run through the summer with Jessica and Call Me Chantelle, Jess’s promiscuous and vapid bunkmate.

Then school starts up again. Jessica is grappling with her classmates taking the SATs, applying to colleges and worrying about AP tests — but she stands apart from all of that, so secure in her own intelligence and abilities that school just seems to be . . . whatever. In any other character, this would really irk me — but we know, as readers, that Jessica isn’t like all the other seniors. So I was willing to accept that fact that we wouldn’t be reading about her studying long hours or panicking about biology tests. She’s the certified Class Braniac, right?

And she’s also the Class Loudmouth — known for her scathing editorials and loud opinions regarding the dense, clueless people with whom she shares a class. When an e-mail begins popping up in the inboxes of Pineville High’s seniors — aptly called Pinevile Low – everyone assumes she’s behind the embarrassing, supposedly secret gossip that’s now become fodder for everyone around her. But she isn’t. Isn’t she?

Add in the fact that Jessica now has her heart set on attending Columbia in New York City – recent site of the 9/11 terrorist attack — and the knowledge that her parents will never, ever want her to attend, especially when she’s been offered scholarships to a bevy of other schools, and Jess is ready to panic.

Oh, yeah. And Marcus Flutie, the semi-reformed (but still nonconformist) bad boy she was thisclose to just flat-out falling into crazed love with is now trying to hook her up with his best friend (and fellow Class Brainiac) Len Levy.

I know, it’s a lot going on. Definitely a lot. But I can tell you that I tore through this book as though I had seconds to live — and I had to make peace with the Marcus-and-Jess situation before it was too late. I was far from disappointed! Megan McCafferty’s books are funny, poignant, realistic and just . . . good. Really, really good.

Run out and get books one and two, and then you’ll be like me — running to Borders at 9:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, sweaty coupon in hand, looking around like a crazed beast for Charmed Thirds, the next installment in this addictive series. ( )