Most Recommended Books

Track reading, wishlists & new-book alerts

Get
Skip to content
Share:

Lisa Greenwald Books in Order

Explore Lisa Greenwald books in order, with short summaries, series guides, and easy suggestions on where to start across her series and standalones.

Last updated: July 7, 2026

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).

View

Publication Order

Sort:

28 books

My Life in Pink & Green

by Lisa Greenwald

2009

Lucy Desberg turns a knack for fixing makeup disasters into a small business, just when her family's pharmacy is in trouble. Saving the store may take more than beauty tips, but Lucy is determined to try.

Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes

by Lisa Greenwald

2010

A blizzard threatens Valentine's Day, so Kate, Georgia, and Olivia start delivering fortune cookies to lonely neighbors in their building. As they spread a little cheer, they also have to face the secrets inside their own friendship.

Reel Life Starring Us

by Lisa Greenwald

2011

New girl Dina thinks a video project with popular Chelsea could be her way into the right crowd. Instead she gets pulled into Chelsea's family crisis and learns how quickly another person's life can unravel.

The Ultimate Baby Owner's Manual

by Lisa Greenwald

2012

Three pregnant yoga friends head to a beachside inn for one last Labor Day escape before motherhood changes everything. Over a few pampered days, they swap fears, hopes, and hard truths while waiting to see whether one of them goes into labor first.

My Summer of Pink & Green

by Lisa Greenwald

2013

Lucy expects a great summer now that her family's eco-spa plan is underway. Instead she gets a bossy coordinator, an irritating new girl, and family tensions that no makeover can smooth over.

Ruby's Secret Gift

by Lisa Greenwald

2013

A brief standalone from Lisa Greenwald published in 2013. Public plot details are limited, but it appears to be a short-format story about Ruby and a meaningful secret gift.

Pink & Green Is the New Black

by Lisa Greenwald

2014

Eighth grade looks promising for Lucy, until boyfriend problems and school-event pressure start piling up. As she plans a masquerade and helps at the spa, she has to figure out what growing up really means.

Welcome to Dog Beach

by Lisa Greenwald

2014

Remy returns to Seagate Island grieving her dog Danish and worried that her friendships are slipping. Dog Beach becomes both a refuge and the start of her plan to bring back the summer magic.

Dog Beach Unleashed

by Lisa Greenwald

2015

Remy is back on Seagate with her friends, her dog-sitting business, and a summer that refuses to cooperate. Record rain and evacuation threats leave bored dogs and short tempers everywhere, and Remy has to invent new ways to save the season.

11 Before 12

by Lisa Greenwald

2017

As sixth grade begins, Kaylan and her best friend Arianna make a list of eleven things to do before they turn twelve. Their plan is supposed to help them survive middle school, but it may end up testing the friendship they are trying to protect.

Kale, My Ex, and Other Things to Toss in a Blender

by Lisa Greenwald

2017

Dumped at the start of summer, Mia teams up with her best friend to track her ex and build a fake online persona. Their revenge plot collides with a surprise smoothie business and the possibility of moving on for real.

12 Before 13

by Lisa Greenwald

2018

After a life-changing summer at camp, Ari feels pulled between Kaylan and her newer friends. A fresh list of twelve goals carries the girls through seventh grade, boys, bat mitzvahs, and the pressure of staying close.

TBH, This Is So Awkward

by Lisa Greenwald

2018

Cece, Gabby, and Prianka are used to doing everything together, until a hurtful text drags the whole grade into a bullying investigation. Suddenly their tight friendship does not feel quite as unbreakable as it once did.

TBH, This May Be TMI

by Lisa Greenwald

2018

Cece wants middle school to be about more than crush talk, but her friends have other ideas. When an SOS text from Vishal turns into something bigger, the girls have to look beyond their own drama.

13 and Counting

by Lisa Greenwald

2019

With seventh grade spinning faster than expected, Ari and Kaylan make thirteen New Year's resolutions before their first summer apart. The list pushes old tensions to the surface and forces both girls to ask what they really want.

TBH, IDK What's Next

by Lisa Greenwald

2019

Summer finally arrives, but Cece, Gabby, and Prianka cannot agree on what the best summer ever should look like. Camp, pool days, and changing relationships make it harder than expected to stay on the same page.

TBH, Too Much Drama

by Lisa Greenwald

2019

Spirit Week, summer plans, and one wildly embarrassing secret push Cece, Gabby, and Prianka to the edge. When a meme goes too far, one mistake threatens to blow up the whole group.

13 and 3/4

by Lisa Greenwald

2020

Ari and Kaylan face their first summer apart, with one at Camp Silver and the other at comedy camp. Their newest list is meant to keep the friendship strong, even as both girls start changing in ways the other cannot control.

TBH, I Feel the Same

by Lisa Greenwald

2020

New activities and new friends are supposed to be a good thing. But when Gabby's latest crowd starts ranking girls by looks, popularity, and smarts, the trio has to decide what kind of friends they want to be.

TBH, You Know What I Mean

by Lisa Greenwald

2020

Cece takes the lead after some boys say dumb things about girls, and suddenly everyone wants something from her. Being the one who speaks up feels good, right up until the pressure gets too heavy.

TBH, I Don’t Want to Say Good-bye

by Lisa Greenwald

2021

Gabby's mom announces a move to Texas just as summer begins, and the friends who thought they would always stay together start drifting apart. The final book asks how a group survives when goodbye stops being hypothetical.

TBH, No One Can EVER Know

by Lisa Greenwald

2021

Victoria is helping plan the Valentine's Day dance, but her mom's anxiety and her own secret may keep her from enjoying any of it. To fix things, she might have to say the one thing she most wants to hide.

Dear Friends

by Lisa Greenwald

2022

Eleni has always had a built-in best friend, until her lifelong bond with Sylvie falls apart right before middle school. Desperate to fix things, she starts untangling what friendship really means and where her own part in the story lies.

Absolutely, Positively Natty

by Lisa Greenwald

2023

After her mom steps away from the family, Natty moves with her dad to Miller Creek and tries to fix everything by staying relentlessly cheerful. Starting a pep squad is easy compared with facing the pain she keeps trying to out-smile.

Wishing on Matzo Ball Soup!

by Lisa Greenwald

2023

When Ellie learns her family's deli may close, she makes a wish on matzo ball soup and launches a plan to save it. With friends, sisters, and grandparents in the mix, the fight becomes about much more than one restaurant.

Fortune Tellers

by Lisa Greenwald

2024

Millie, Nora, and Bea have not spoken in over a year, after a fight, the pandemic, and three separate moves broke them apart. Then old paper fortune tellers start reappearing, nudging the girls back toward the friendship they lost.

In a Pickle!

by Lisa Greenwald

2024

When Charlie's Bat Mitzvah venue disappears, Ellie decides to step in as party planner. Between changing friendships, school, and the deli's attic renovation, she soon discovers that even great ideas can get complicated fast.

You'll Find It All Still Here

by Lisa Greenwald

2025

Event planner Mira never expected to return to the sleepaway camp she loved as a kid. A grown-up camp weekend, an old crush, and the grief of losing her mother force her to rethink love, memory, and what comes next.

Where should I start?

If you want friendship-first middle grade: 11 Before 1212 Before 1313 and Counting13 and 3/4
If you love text-message storytelling: TBH, This Is So AwkwardTBH, This May Be TMITBH, Too Much DramaTBH, IDK What's Next
If you want family business drama and makeovers: My Life in Pink & GreenMy Summer of Pink & GreenPink & Green Is the New Black
If you want newer standalones about shifting friendships: Dear FriendsFortune TellersAbsolutely, Positively Natty
If you want her adult novel: You'll Find It All Still Here

Author bio

Lisa Greenwald spent her early childhood in Fairfield, Connecticut, and moved to Roslyn Heights, New York, at the end of fifth grade. She has two younger brothers, and that mix of family closeness, teasing, and negotiation feels very much at home in her books. Her stories often understand how big ordinary kid moments can feel.

Camp matters in her life, too. She met her husband, Dave, at sleepaway camp when she was sixteen, and she has said she loved camp so much she would go back forever if she could. That love of summer places, changing friendships, and camp-level emotions turns up again and again in her fiction.

She was not one of those writers who says she knew from age five and never looked back.

Greenwald has said she once imagined becoming a hair stylist, a concert pianist, or even a rabbi. But she also kept making up stories, which turned out to be the through line. She studied English with a concentration in creative writing at Binghamton University, then went to The New School for an MFA in writing for children.

She writes fast first drafts, then revises hard. She has also worked in the library at The Birch Wathen Lenox School in Manhattan, which feels like a pretty natural fit for someone whose books are so tuned in to the social weather of school, camp, and friend groups.

A lot of readers first meet her through My Life in Pink & Green, about Lucy Desberg, a practical, makeup-loving seventh grader trying to save her family’s pharmacy. Others start with 11 Before 12, which follows two best friends using lists to survive the jump into middle school, or TBH, This Is So Awkward, which tells its story through texts, emojis, and notes. Greenwald is especially good at writing kids who are trying to fix things, friendships, family businesses, school drama, even other people, and learning that some problems are bigger and messier than they hoped.

That thread keeps running through later books like Dear Friends, Absolutely, Positively Natty, and Fortune Tellers. The details change, but the questions are familiar: What makes a good friend? What happens when a group shifts? How do you stay kind, honest, or hopeful when life stops following the plan? She writes about crushes, group chats, family stress, money worries, camp memories, and neighborhood places that feel almost like characters themselves.

She also has a very clear affection for community spaces. A pharmacy, a deli, a beach town, a group text, a school hallway, these are the kinds of places where her characters figure out who they are. Even when the books are funny, and many of them are, there is usually something tender underneath.

These days Greenwald lives in New York City with her husband, their two daughters, and a mini bernedoodle named Kibbitz. She has said that Tuck Everlasting is her favorite book, and that one small wild thing that happened to her was winning a radio contest and a thousand dollars at the end of eighth grade. Those little personal details fit her work. Her books tend to feel grounded, specific, and very interested in the strange, intense, funny business of growing up.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

Comments

Did we miss something? Have feedback?

Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts

We only use your email to notify you about replies.

All comments are moderated.

Discover and track your reading on the go

Track your reading, manage wishlists, and get notified when new books are added.