Ellie is nearly 13, in Year Nine, and desperate to have a boyfriend. Her best friends Magda and Nadine (both prettier and thinner) have boyfriends, but the closest she can get is Dopey Dan, who is younger and a real swot. Find out all her secrets, squirm at her most embarrassing moment, have a laugh, and discover more about boys!

Sylvie and Carl have been friends since they were tiny children. They've always played together, eaten meals with each other's families, called each other boyfriend and girlfriend...and deep down, Sylvie has always believed that they'll end up married to each other. They even have a magical fantasy world that belongs to them alone, as does the Glass Hut where it's all created, at the bottom of Carl's garden. But as they become teenagers, things begin to change.

Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. Forced to wear Mum's odd hand-made garments and forbidden from reading teenage magazines, they know they're very different to 'normal' girls – but when Dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom. Sent to a real school for the first time, Prue struggles to fit in.

Beauty Cookson is no beauty. She's a plain, timid girl who constantly feels inferior to the super-confident, snooty girls at school. Worse than the teasing in the playground, though, is the unpredictable, hurtful criticism from her father. Beauty and her meek, sweet mother live in uneasy fear of his fierce rages, sparked whenever they break one of his fussy house rules.

Marigold's daughter thinks she is the most beautiful mum in the world, but she wishes she wouldn't spend so much money and stay out all night - it's scary.