The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty
Epistolary young adult book. Three 10th grade friends from Ashbury high school, Emily, Lydia and Cassie, participate in their interschool pen pal project for class. Set in Australia and quite entertaining, Emily and Lydia have fun with their pen pals but Cassie runs into serious problems with hers.
4.5/5
Also published under the title Finding Cassie Crazy, it’s the second of these connected books: (1) Feeling Sorry for Celia and (3) The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie / Becoming Bindy Mackenzie / The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie.
Scholastic blurb:
The Ashbury-Brookfield pen pal program was designed to bring together the “lowlife Brooker kids” (as they’re known to the Ashburyites) and the “rich Ashbury snobs” (as they’re called by the Brookfielders) in a spirit of harmony and the Joy of the Envelope. But things don’t go quite as planned. Lydia and Sebastian trade challenges, like setting off the fire alarm at Brookfield. Emily tutors Charlie in “How to Go on a Date with a Girl.” But it’s Cassie and Matthew who both reveal and conceal the most about themselves – and it’s their secrets and lies that set off a war between the two schools.
