Creator / Cathy Cassidy

Cathy Cassidy is a British children's/young adult author, primarily for girls. She has been referred to as "the next Jacqueline Wilson", as her books mostly focus on young teenagers dealing with different issues among family and friends.

Her books currently are:

Standalone Novels

• Dizzy
• Indigo Blue
• Driftwood
• Scarlett
• Sundae Girl
• Lucky Star
• Gingersnaps
• Angel Cake
• Love, Peace and Chocolate
• Looking-Glass Girl
• Broken Heart Club
• Letters To Cathy

Chocolate Box Series

• Cherry Crush
• Marshmallow Skye
• Summer's Dream
• Coco Caramel
• Sweet Honey
• Fortune Cookie
• Life Is Sweet

Daizy Star series:

• Shine On, Daizy Star
• Daizy Star and the Pink Guitar
• Strike A Pose, Daizy Star
• Ooh La La, Daizy Star

Lost and Found series

• Love From Lexie
• Sami's Silver Lining
• Sasha's Secret
• Forever Phoenix

Her books contain examples of these tropes:

• A Birthday, Not a Break: On Ginger's eleventh birthday, she invites all the girls in her class to the ice rink. Only two girls show up. Four of the other girls go to the ice rink, but are only there to laugh at Ginger, ruining her birthday completely.
  • In Marshmallow Skye, not only does Skye still feel overshadowed at her and Summer's birthday party (a party that she didn't want but went along with for Summer), but she is starting to get sick.
• Alcoholic Parent: Jude's mum's alcoholism drives a lot of the plot of Sundae Girl.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • Anya and Lily from Angel Cake to Dan.
  • It's hinted that this is part of the reason Cat is interested in Mouse, even though he's trying to stay out of trouble.
  • Gender-flipped with Honey and Ash from Sweet Honey, although Honey is trying to change her ways. She mentions going out with these kind of boys after her breakup with Shay, including one that taught her to pick locks.
  Honey: My friends are the kind of kids who think it’s cool to break the rules. As for boys, the ones I like have “trouble” stamped all over them.
  • Phoenix described her former relationships as either this, or gender-flipped. According to her, boys who fit this trope for her dumped her because she was too tame, or she dumped the nice kind boys who liked her because she felt she would drag them down. She sees Lee as the second type, where she is the dangerous one rather than the boy.
• Alice Allusion: Looking-Glass Girl repeatedly references Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, with the main character being called Alice, and her dreaming about Carroll's characters. At the back of the book, there are a list of songs to listen to while reading the book.
• Alpha Bitch - Shannon from Gingersnaps, Kristina from Sundae Girl, Karen (although she's very minor) from Driftwood, Lily from Angel Cake, and Savannah from Looking-Glass Girl.
• Always Identical Twins - Skye and Summer, although the way they dress makes it easy to tell them apart.
• Animal Lover: Coco. She suggests getting a fish pond for Rover, Cherry's goldfish, is thrilled when she gets a pet lamb for Christmas and helps free two ponies, including a pregnant one, during her spotlight book. Sometimes crosses over with Naïve Animal Lover, such as when she insists on riding Caramel even though she knows she's not experienced enough yet, resulting in a fall and Caramel being sold.
• Annoying Younger Sibling:
  • Scarlett wants to view Holly as this. However, it proves hard since Holly wants to be just like her.
  • Misti is frequently this to Indie, being only two.
  • Kazia to Anya, particularly at the start when Kazia excitedly tells Anya about her first day at an English-speaking school (although this is unintentional, as she just wants to tell her sister about how great her day was and doesn't know how terrible Anya's first day went). However they generally get on pretty well.
  • Mostly averted with the Chocolate Box series, as all the siblings get along, except for Honey and Cherry.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Jude's dad in Sundae Girl is a Elvis impersonator. She finds it embarrassing. To a more serious extent, she is also somewhat ashamed of her mother's drunken behaviour, afraid to tell any of her friends the truth of Rose's alcoholism.
• Amicable Exes: The awkwardness following Marley and Lexie's breakup doesn't last very long, as they are able to remain friends, and the majority of the resultant 'clunkiness' is due to the fact that they were both using their relationship as a source of inspiration for their music.
• Arc Symbol - There's usually one at the end of each chapter of the books, such as a fox for Gingersnaps and a bunch of cherries for Cherry Crush, daisies for Summer's Dream and bees for Sweet Honey. But the main one is the mouse face for Lucky Star, and later on, the cat face, symbolising Mouse himself, as well as his relationship with Cat. There is also the question of whether their relationship, like a game of cat and mouse, will end in tears or if it can work.
  • 'Sami's Silver Lining' is absolutely full of them. Sami's coat is an in-universe one, as he uses it as a way of feeling closer to his father, and a shield against the world. He compares his shielding himself with the coat to Lexie's tortoise, Mary Shelley.
• Ascended Extra - Mouse was originally from Dizzy. He then got his own book, Lucky Star, where Dizzy and Finn are Demoted to Extra.
• Author Appeal: Artsy, hippy, nature-lovers are frequent Cassidy characters.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Seddon in Coco Caramel. Coco is horrified when she sees him being cruel to Caramel and making Jasmine, his stepdaughter, watch. It's revealed that Caramel is not the first pony - or animal - that he's treated this way.
• Beneath the Mask - Honey, who makes herself appear cool and don't-care, but she knows deep down that she's just afraid to open up completely.
  • Kristina Kowalski who turns out to be able to identify with Jude about her family.
  • One of the coping mechanisms of Broken Heart Club was to recreate themselves, sometimes shifting into this territory, particularly with Eden dyeing her hair and wearing black shapeless clothes, to the point that Ryan doesn't even recognize her on their first day in secondary school.
  • Summer in Summer's Dream comes across as this compared to Marshmallow Skye. Whereas in the latter Summer comes across as naturally confident, cool and in control, from her own perspective we see that she's deeply troubled, lonely and putting herself under a lot of pressure as "the girl most likely to succeed."
  • Very similarly, Sasha in the Lost and Found series puts on a facade of being perfect. In Sasha's Secret, she has to learn to accept that she isn't perfect and realize that she doesn't need to be.
• Best Friend: The theme of Broken Heart Club was that there was originally a group of five who were all best friends, but the club broke up. Additionally, the club had two pairs of best friends - Andie and Eden, and Hasmita and Tasha. Ryan considered Eden and Andie his best friends, but he also had other friends and wasn't always in the group.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Honey Tanberry, especially in Cherry Crush, is selfish, surly and prone to frequent and violent tantrums.
• Broken Bird: How Coco describes Summer in Coco Caramel.
  These days Summer is like a shadow girl, frail, fragile, lost.
• Broken Pedestal: Honey when she finally faces up to her father's true self-absorbed and unfaithful character.
  • Dizzy to her Missing Mom, as shown through her losing interest in the birthday presents from Storm that she has cherished for years and replacing them with things that remind her of Mouse, Finn and her friends.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: "Marshmallow Skye" has this theme: Clara empathises with her caged Linnet and also wishes to be free.
• The Casanova: Marley of the Lost and Found seems to be this, but he turns out to be a serial dater because he is gay and in denial, and has convinced himself he'll become straight if he can just find the right girl.
• Cute Kitten - All of the kittens from Driftwood, but Krusty in particular.
• Colour Motif: Blue in Indigo Blue. A fortune teller once told Indie's mum that blue was her lucky colour. So she wears blue, decorates her house blue, and named her daughters after shades of blue.
  • Red in Scarlett, specifically how it represents danger and anger. Scarlett later uses her old red clothes to help make a blanket for her unborn half-sister, symbolising how she has managed to turn these negative connations into positive ones.
• Cool Big Sis: Cassia to Ginger. Honey can be this to her younger sisters on her good days, alternating with Aloof Big Sister.
• Cool Teacher - Mr Hunter from Gingersnaps. He insists that magazines and comics count as reading, and even calls in at Shannon's thirteenth birthday party when the kids ask him to. Unfortunately, when he rejects Shannon's romantic advances, she gets angry and accuses him of sexual harassment, and he has to leave the school in spite of Ginger and Emily's insistence that he did nothing wrong.
  • Also Miss Quinn, the art teacher from Driftwood. She helps the girls when they find the abandoned kittens, and is supportive of Paul, especially due to his talent in art.
  • Miss Moon from the Daizy Star books is also considered this, in sharp contrast with the teacher that apparently taught Year Six before she arrived.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: Sami wears one of these, but more as a remnant of the family he lost than any other reason. He turns it into an art piece after he is reunited with his mother and sister.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: In Lucky Star, Cat first starts hanging out with Mouse because she knows her parents won't approve. When they eventually find out she's been dating him for months, a lot of things come to light that end badly.
  "Mouse, what in hell have you done to my daughter?"
• Dead All Along: The Heart Club broke up for more than one reason, but the biggest was that one of them died.
• Defrosting the Ice Queen: Summer is initially dismissive and unfriendly towards Alfie but forms a better opinion of him after realising his kind and supportive nature during her lowest point in Summer's Dream.
• Delinquent Hair:
  • In Driftwood, Paul insists on dyeing his hair green, later on revealed to be an attempt at imitating seaweed. He also wears it in plaits.
  • When Scarlett accidentally dyes her hair green with peroxide, she can't find a shade of brown she likes to dye it back to. She says her headteacher almost had a fit when she came to school with scarlet hair.
  • Phoenix already has red hair, but she dyes it even redder.
  • Bex's hair goes through a variety of colours, mostly blue, green and red.
• Disappeared Dad - Zak, Mouse's dad. He leaves Mouse and his mother early on, and although Mouse stays with him while his mother's in hospital, he ends up leaving him again.
  • Greg to the Tanberry sisters is divorced from their mother. Already distant, he leaves for Australia in Cherry Crush and has little interest in being involved in his daughters' lives. Even when Honey is living with him, he makes it clear that his work, money and newest affair take priority and is largely absent, with most parental support coming from his girlfriend.
  • Lexie’s father doesn’t even know she exists, even before Bex was in foster, she had a stepdad, with no mention made of her birth father, Romy’s dad ran out on her family, and Phoenix has very little contact with her father. Oh yes, and Sami’s father is dead.
• Dogged Nice Guy - Kevin Carter from Sundae Girl. Even when he and Jude start hanging out, she insists that they're not dating. Alfie in Summer's Dream of the low-key yearning type; he has a crush on Summer but he keeps it to himself until near the last third of the book.
• Domestic Abuse: Indie's stepdad Max to her mum. Seddon to Laurie's mum in Coco Caramel.
• Easily Forgiven: After Jo apologizes to Indie for being so mean to her before the summer and asks for another chance, Indie gives in straightaway, although she no longer considers Jo her best friend. Subverted a little in that she had already put her foot down with Jo's behaviour and stopped associating with her some months before.
  • Despite Honey's coldness towards her stepsister, Cherry never returns her meanness. When Honey finally accepts her, Cherry is totally fine with forgiving her for two years' worth of coldness.
  • In Gingersnaps, Ginger talks to Shannon near the end, and notes that in spite of knowing what she's really like, just one smile makes her forget it all. She still considers Shannon a friend. However subverted in that she knows Shannon was never really as good a friend as she thought.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: With a rat in the school canteen in Angel Cake. Anya puts it: "A little row in the canteen escalated into a full-on riot..."
• Even Evil Has Standards - Lily from Angel Cake is pretty mean, but she is mortified when she makes fun of Kurt's parents and he tells her that they both died when he was little. Later on, she even makes a Heel–Face Turn after her attempts to win Dan keep failing.
  • At one point of Cherry Crush, Honey tells Cherry that she's sorry about Cherry losing her mother, adding something to this effect - she may despise Cherry, but she's not heartless.
• Everyone Loves Blondes:
  • Shannon from Gingersnaps is fair-haired and extremely popular. She likes to pick out kids who want to be cool because she knows she has enough status to make them go along with her.
  • Coco, Skye, Summer and Honey are also fair-haired and popular, although Skye feels less so in comparison to Summer.
• Face of a Thug: To a degree, Spike from the Daizy Star series. He has green hair and a lot of piercings, but he's also very polite and soft-spoken and he started dating Becca after they met at a school orchestra practice. On several occasions, he makes it clear that he's very sweet underneath his dangerous look.
• Family Theme Naming:
  • In Gingersnaps, Ginger and her sister Cassia are named after spices.
  • In Indigo Blue, Anna named her daughters Indigo and Misti because they are related to the colour blue.
  • In the Chocolate Box series, the Tanberry twins Skye and Summer are named after a summer their parents spent on the Isle of Skye.
• Fat Best Friend: Frankie to Anya in Angel Cake. When she first befriends Anya, she notices how much food she has on her lunch tray and that her school jumper would be too big on her dad. She's lost some weight by the end.
• Fille Fatale - Cat from Lucky Star has shades of this, even though she's only twelve. She admits near the end that she originally only started hanging out with Mouse to wind her parents up. However, she doesn't stay this way.
  • Honey Tanberry too, who is fifteen and involved with older boys who definitely aren't kids.
• Foregone Conclusion: Kevin Carter trying to serve tea and flapjacks while wearing rollerblades.
  Jude: Disaster is inevitable.
• Formerly Fat: Ginger in Gingersnaps believed she was fat and ugly as a pre-teen. She's surprised when she sees a photo of herself some years later and realises she wasn't at all and it was the effects of bullying that gave her such a low self-image.
  • Averted with Romy. In between Sasha's Secret and Forever Phoenix, Romy gains a good deal of self-confidence, as well as starts dressing a little more fashionably, and is described as a 'striking, curvy brunette' in Forever Phoenix, as opposed to the shy, mousy girl in the previous books. However, she is never mentioned to have lost any weight.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The Lost and Found is perfectly balanced with six boys (Marley, Sami, Dylan, Jake, George, Lee) and six girls (Lexie, Bex, Happi, Romy, Sasha, Phoenix)
• Girl of My Dreams: In Marshmallow Skye Skye has dreams about being in love with a boy called Finch. At the end of the book she meets a boy called Jamie Finch, who she gets together with in Summer's Dream.
• Good Stepmother: Clare in Scarlett is consistently kind and understanding, despite Scarlett admitting that she is 'the stepchild from hell.' Scarlett comes to appreciate her and they eventually develop a good relationship.
  • Charlotte to Cherry in the Chocolate Box series, too. Unlike Scarlett, Cherry accepts her instantly.
  • Although she is a girlfriend rather than a wife, Emma from Sweet Honey is actually a better parent to Honey than her dad is. To be fair, Honey makes the effort to get along with her, something she didn't do with her stepfamily at home.
  • Victoria to Jude in Sundae Girl. She doesn't actually become Jude's stepmother until the wedding near the end of the book but after the initial shock, Jude is perfectly fine with it.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Jo becomes jealous of Indigo simply because a boy she fancies seems to prefer her. The same goes for Lily in Angel Cake. It's also implied that Shannon doesn't like the fact that Sam obviously was more interested in Ginger than her when they first met.
• Immoral Journalist: Matt Brennan. He tags along with the Lost and Found and appears to be crushing on Sasha, but after she rejects him, he sells pictures of her having a seizure to a tabloid in order to blacken their mentor's name and suggest drug use.
• Important Haircut - Honey cuts off her hair at the end of Cherry Crush. She was already angry and rebellious, but takes it even further afterwards. In Sweet Honey she gives one of her Australian friends a haircut that suits her better than her old style.
• Irrational Hatred: Jude's mother Rose intensely dislikes her father, even though she was the one who left him and he gets on well with her parents, and takes every opportunity to sneer at him. It's implied that this is because Rose feels inadequate in comparison, since he is a popular Elvis impersonator about to marry his new girlfriend, and also because she doesn't want to face up to her alcoholism, which was the reason for them breaking up.
• It's All My Fault: Sundae Girl: After Jude asks her dad how their parents broke up, she came to the conclusion that the reason her mother is an alcoholic is because of her, because she started drinking heavily just after Jude was born. Eventually, she confronts her mother with this, and Rose is horrified that Jude thinks she's a problem and insists that her daughter is the best thing in her life and she drinks for her own self.
• I Was Quite a Looker: In Sundae Girl, Jude looks at a picture of her grandparents when they were young and wonders what happened to the young girl her grandmother used to be. Tragically, her grandmother, who has Alzheimer's, doesn't even recognize herself in the photo.
• Let's Just Be Friends: Coco says this in Coco Caramel when Lawrie tries to kiss her. This isn't necessarily because she doesn't like him, but she feels she's not ready for anything more than friendship.
  • Sasha attempts this line on Matt after he gives her an unpleasant first kiss. Unfortunately, he doesn't take it well and spends the rest of the book giving Sasha a hard time and even selling a picture of her having a seizure to a tabloid and spreading rumours about substance abuse.
  • Lexie and Marley also have to have this conversation after he comes out to her.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Shay to Honey. After they break up, she goes wildly off the rails, skipping school, staying out late and seeing various unsuitable older boys.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Jude hides her mum's alcoholism and her dad's job profession (Elvis impersonator) from everyone, including her best friend Nuala due to embarrassment.
• Love Makes You Evil: A minor one but Lily in Angel Cake dislikes Anya because she also has feelings for Dan. When she stops having feelings for him, her relationship with Anya improves greatly. Jo in Indigo Blue also takes a level in meanness when Shane Taggart, her crush, seems to prefer Indigo to her. Bobbi-Jo in Sami's Silver Lining also keeps putting down Lexie, seeing her as a rival for Marley's affection (in reality, he's not interested in girls). Many other examples of girls turning on their friends due to their feelings for someone also appear in Cassidy's works. Andie from Broken Heart Club is especially notable, as Eden said she'd never said a mean thing in her life until she caught Ryan trying to kiss Eden.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Did Andie really come back, or was Eden just imagining her? She managed to convince Eden to change her style and dyed her hair back to its natural colour, but when Eden checks her texts at the end, the ones from Andie have disappeared and no one else sees her - possibly because Andie asks Eden not to tell anyone else she's around. Andie turns out to have been Dead All Along, which adds the question of whether she was a ghost or imaginary.
  • Is Skye really having visions of Clara Jane's past or are they just dreams? Her meeting Jamie Finch in person at the end of the book leaves it ambiguous - was Skye really Dreaming of Things to Come or is it just a coincidence?
• Meaningful Name:
  • Phoenix rises from whatever life throws at her, just as the mythical bird dies and is reborn constantly.
  • Red is a warning colour for nature to stay away. Scarlett likes to think her hair colour and name are a warning for the rest of the world to back off.
  • Ginger is very sensitive about her name, since she has red hair.
• Missing Mom:
  • Dizzy has one, although she always gets in contact on Dizzy's birthday. Then she returns. Then she leaves for India and Dizzy only hears from her occasionally.
  • Paul says that his mother just went away. Later on, his friends discover that she drowned herself.
  • Lexie's mother left the flat one day, and never came back. Lexie was taken into care, and her mother was never found.
• Most Writers Are Writers: A few of Cassidy's protagonists are aspiring writers, such as Cherry in the Chocolate Box series.
  • Indie from Indigo Blue doesn't mention being a writer although she is interested in acting and becoming someone else, but she describes her dream job as "Daydreaming for a living", which is something the author has said about what she thought being a writer would be like.
• Named After Someone Famous:
  • Jude in Sundae Girl was named after a Beatles song and Judy Garland.
  • Marley and Dylan are nicknamed the Bob Brothers, thanks to being named after Bob Marley and Bob Dylan.
• Never My Fault: Honey suffers from a major case of this for the first four books of The Chocolate Box Girls, blaming Cherry, Paddy, her mother, Anthony for her father's absence and being excluded from school. Just about the only person she doesn't blame is her father. A big part of her character development is growing out of this mindset.
• Non-Uniform Uniform - Joey from Driftwood tries to invokes this. She constantly does everything to get around the uniform rules at school. Eventually, the principal seems to realize that he can't make his students dress right, no matter what the dress code is, and takes away the dress code completely.
  • Honey attempts this at her new school in Australia and lies that her altered uniform just came that way, but her head teacher has none of it and makes her wear it properly from then on.
• One of the Boys: Angel Cake has Dan misinterpreting Lily as this in his gang, not realizing that she has a major crush on him.
  "I like her, sure, but...Lily's just one of the gang!"
• The Perfectionist - Summer, especially when it comes to ballet, which is the thing that matters most to her.
  • Marley treats every mistake in the Lost and Found like the end of the world, prioritizing it over everything and getting cross if things happen like Sasha missing her cue or someone has to skip a rehearsal.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Summer's Dream ends with Summer unable to go to ballet school and throwing her ballet shoes into the sea, believing she has destroyed her chance to be a ballerina. However she finds comfort in Alfie, who encourages her to see her broken dream as a stepping stone to other possibilities, and after managing to eat at a picnic with him, becomes more hopeful for her future.
• Shared Universe:
  • The Chocolate Box series ends with the Cooke family moving to Millford. Love From Lexie features Jake as one of the main characters.
  • Lucky Star has Mouse, a supporting character from Dizzy, star as the main character. Dizzy and Finn also make an appearance.
• Shipper on Deck: Anya in Angel Cake is this for her friends. She knows Kurt is interested in Frankie, and gives him advice on how to get her attention. They start dating by the end of the book.
  • Nuala in Sundae Girl is Jude's best friend she openly ships Jude Rielly/Kevin Carter.
• Shout-Out: Indigo Blue repeatedly refers to the 1968 musical movie Oliver!, since Indie's class performs it.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside:
  • Scarlett from the book of the same name. She causes trouble at every school she goes to after her dad leaves, because she feels as if he's replaced her and her mum with his new wife and stepdaughter.
  • Honey from the Chocolate Box series. She was always her dad's favourite, and is still hanging onto the belief that he'll come back after years. She can't stand living with her stepfather and new stepsister and spirals out of control, when really, she's just feeling alone.
  • Forever Phoenix suggests that deep down, Sharleen Scott is this. She never quite stops being a Stepford Snarker, but Phoenix finds out that her family is homeless and she's lashing out due to that.
• Stepford Smiler - Emma from Sweet Honey, of the depressed variety. She's kind, beautiful and appears to have it all, but she's also ignoring Greg's multiple affairs on the side. Honey is extremely surprised that she lets it slide, simply in order not to rock the boat.
  • Sasha from the Lost and Found tries her best to be perfect, but on the inside, she is starting to fall apart.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Sasha from the Lost and Found series feels very similar to Summer from the Chocolate Box Girls series, with both girls being perfectionists who push themselves too hard and eventually have to accept that they can't handle the pressure. While Summer has to admit to herself that she needs help and eventually accepts that her original dream of dancing is over, Sasha has to accept that she's not perfect and learn that she doesn't need to be, as well as asking for medical help concerning her blackout moments. When they meet, Summer highlights the similarities by telling Sasha how brave she is to admit her limits, something she didn't do until she pushed herself so far that she became seriously ill.
• Technician vs. Performer: Summer has the technician part down - she is step-perfect and practices for hours every day - but struggles to demonstrate the creativity and passion the judges are looking for in a budding ballerina. In Fortune Cookie it turns out she is far more suited to being a dance teacher than a dancer.
• The Confidant: Cherry in Marshmallow Skye, Coco Caramel and Fortune Cookie; she keeps her stepsisters Skye's and Coco's and their half-brother Cookie's respective secrets.
• Unfortunate Name - The first time Ginger told a teacher her name, she tried not to laugh. Meanwhile, her classmates asked her why she was named after her hair colour.
  Ginger Brown... it sounds like a colour on a paint chart, not a name.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child:
  • Jude and both her parents. Her mother is a childlike alcoholic, and her dad is an Elvis impersonator. Both of them embarrass her. Meanwhile, Jude is a straight-A student with perfect attendance and clean-cut friends.
  • Daizy Star and her dad also fit. He keeps making crazy plans involving his family (these being taking them to sail around the world, moving them out to Malawi, and moving them out to a remote island), often scaring Daizy and her family. He eventually takes a job at the high school Daizy is about to start at, which is, in her opinion, even scarier than his crazy schemes.
• We Used to Be Friends: The whole concept of Broken Heart Club. Andie gets jealous of Eden over Ryan and tells Eden they're no longer friends, Eden becomes goth and cuts herself off from everyone, Ryan becomes angry and turns into a delinquent, Tasha moves to France and has trouble contacting her old friends, and Hasmita cuts her past out of her life after moving schools. Andie had forgiven Eden just before she died, but never got the chance to tell her - Ryan eventually finds an apology letter to Eden in a book he'd lent to Andie.
• Weight Woe - In Summer's Dream, although it's actually the mental effects of anorexia making Summer think that way, and she's really far too thin.
  • Frankie from Angel Cake sometimes complains about her weight, but it's not enough to stop her from eating junk food. When she starts dating Kurt, he gets her into health food, and she starts to lose weight.
  • Ginger from Gingersnaps thought she was fat in primary school, but only because she was bullied. She later on looks at a photo of herself and realizes that she wasn't after all.
  • Romy gets bullied about her weight and feels that it makes her unattractive. Sasha teaches her to dress to her curves and eventually Romy gains a lot of self-confidence
• With Friends Like These...:
  • Jo from Indigo Blue. When Indie is going through a hard time, she is never there for her. Then she accuses Indie of flirting with her crush (even though it's the other way around) and only gets worse when Indie gets the main role in the class musical. Contrasted with Aisha Patel, who Indie has only known a few months but knows stuff about her that Jo never thought of asking.
  • Joey can stray into this territory while she's dating Kit, as she pretty much abandons Hannah to side with him. Near the end, Joey recognizes this.
  • Shannon to Ginger, though it takes Ginger a while to realise this. Their friendship falls apart when Ginger finally stops going along with whatever Shannon says and she later wonders if Shannon ever really saw her as a friend or just a follower.
• Woman Scorned:
  • The reason why Shannon develops such an antipathy to Sam Taylor? Simply because he's the one boy in the school who doesn't fall at her feet when she flirts with him.
  • Andie from Broken Heart Club and Jo from Indigo Blue react this way when their crushes make it clear that they prefer their best friend. However, Jo directly blames Indie instead of her crush, and Andie blames Eden every bit as much as she blames Ryan (possibly more, because she'd been telling Eden how much she liked Ryan as a warning).
  • Bobbi-Jo Bright throws a tantrum on a public train, cancels a recording session, and insults Lexie, because Marley didn't reciprocate her advances.