YMMV / Making Friends

• Arc Fatigue: The stories can tend to drag a bit, especially due to the disconnect of the plotlines at time.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: "Third Time's The Charm" ends on a pretty dour note that doesn't sit well with most fans after all the happy go lucky shenanigans of the series. Sure it's one thing if the power of the notebook is lost and Dany goes back to a normal life. But it's another to have Madison just..gone from existence, the Cloud People essentially winning and forcing Amara into compliance, and the world just re-written now having aliens and Dany not knowing what to do. With the only sliver of hope being the piece of notebook she tore off. But the story ends before she does anything with it.
• Designated Hero: It's kinda hard to root for Dany at points in the story as her actions do make her come off as a brat sometime. Sure she's young and needs to learn her actions have consequences, but sometimes when all's said and done, some lessons have a hard time sticking with her. Then again the story shows that her parents can often be just as hypocritical as she can. So guess it runs in the family.
• Designated Villain: Nick in the stories. While in the first story he was a mean kid that kept teasing Dany. Some of the retaliation seems a bit extreme: Tom pushing him just for insulting Dany and getting turned into a pig by Neptune in the climax of the book (which admittedly was a dumb move to insult a man who was stated to be smitten with her and not afraid to use magic). At the least, Madison only scolded him for his insults. By the Back to the Drawing Board, the story practically forces him to be a bad guy but only because he was trying to be more friendly with Dany and she flat out rejects him. Dany never even realizes what her actions were doing to the guy and in the end, doesn't make to talk him down nor never even apologizes to him. And this is after the end of the first book of Dany telling him "Words hurt". Hypocrite much?
• Pacing Problems: Kirsten's a good writer with some great humor, but has a bit of trouble trying to find a good pace with the stories and feels all over the place at points. Back to the Drawing Board notable has this problem the most due to the numerous plotlines jostling for attention.