Jess Delaney gets an anonymous scholarship to a prestigious boarding school and immediately does not want it, or at least does not want what it costs: leaving home, and leaving three friends who have spent two books becoming necessary. That is the engine of the third Mother-Daughter Book Club novel, and the audiobook gives it ten hours and thirty minutes, which is generous room for a middle-grade year.
A Mysterious Benefactor and an Unexplained Parallel
Four girls, four households, four separate crises, and one book club holding them together. A reviewer from September 2013 describes the method exactly: "The author tells the story from the views of four girls who are all in a mother-daughter book club together." Jess heads for Colonial Academy on the strength of what the same review calls "a mysterious benefactor," and the club responds by picking up Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs, a choice the copy presents as directly inspired by her situation. The copy leaves that parallel entirely unexplained, which is the right call for readers this age.
Becca Is Back, and Much Improved
Three further strands run domestic in the best sense. Megan's grandmother arrives from Hong Kong for a long stay and, in that reviewer's words, throws "the Wong household into a state of disarray." Emma runs a campaign against her middle school's new uniform policy. Cassidy learns her family is about to change shape. None of these is a crisis by adult standards and all of them are enormous in eighth grade, which is the whole reason the series works.
Tonally, the book covers more ground than its premise suggests. A prank-filled slumber party and a not-so-secret puppy sit alongside a surprise first kiss and a genuine friendship under strain. Lorel Shea, filing in September 2009, tracks the returning cast and notes an old antagonist rehabilitated: "Becca is back, and much improved." The same review inventories the year as "a secret, a first kiss, and a long distance trip or two," which is a fair summary of an eighth grade that keeps moving.
Dukehart Makes Spoken Letters Sound Written
Consistency is what this series sells, and the readers who stayed with it say so plainly. Shortina, writing in November 2009, values the reliability above everything: the books are "just so cute, sweet, and warm. And not lacking in insight, and good moral lessons." The same response singles out the parent-child material, praising a set of relationships that are "all very sincere and realistic" even when some run more strained than others. Comfort reading with actual emotional content is harder to write than either half alone.
Cris Dukehart is credited as the reader, and the structure hands her a demanding assignment. Four alternating point-of-view characters have to stay distinct across a very long recording for a young audience that will not tolerate confusion, and the girls are close in age, close in background, and often in the same room. A second register sits on top of that, because letters run through this installment by design: correspondence with a book club in Wyoming, plus the club's reading of Daddy-Long-Legs. Written text spoken aloud has to sound written. That handoff, repeated across the year, is the production problem this novel sets.
Family listening is the strongest practical case. One reviewer bought the book for a middle school girl who "loved the first two and thought this one was just as good," and a series about a mother-daughter book club is close to purpose-built for a car with a parent and a child in it. Gymnastics zebra, at five stars, reports that the book helped "get to know each of the characters more, and find more interest in the series and the author," which is what you want from a third volume.
A Plumbing Review Attached to a Novel
Every written review on this page was filed before this audio edition existed. The five notices run from September 2009 to January 2014; the recording arrived in November 2015. What you are reading, then, is a verdict on the novel delivered by a print readership that had already moved on by the time anyone recorded it, which makes the 4.6 average across 278 ratings a well-earned score for the book and no guide whatsoever to this particular release.
Worse, one of those five is not about the book at all. A November 2013 entry sitting in this pool opens "This was the second order for this toilet" and proceeds to discuss packaging, delivery and installation bolts. It is a plumbing review that has been attached to a middle-grade novel by whatever process assembles these pages. Discount it entirely, and note that the honest count of readable responses about Dear Pen Pal is four rather than five.
Series position and shelving are the two smaller cautions. Lorel Shea observes that in this installment "The books are less intertwined with the overall plot" than in earlier entries, so anyone tracking a series arc should expect a looser volume. And the filing is odd: this sits under children's audiobooks with a tag pointing at education and learning, when the content is eighth-grade contemporary fiction complete with a first kiss. Judge the age fit from the story rather than from the category.
How Little This Series Condescends
Readers aged roughly nine to thirteen who already know these four girls are the core audience, and parents looking for a shared listen have an unusually good option here. The subject matter stays within reach of a younger listener while treating friendship, money, ambition and family change as things worth taking seriously. A car journey with a middle-schooler is the natural setting. It also arrives with a reading list attached, since the club works through a classic novel across the year, which gives a household somewhere to go next.
Give it a miss if you want to start the series here, because two volumes of accumulated history sit behind the opening chapter and Becca's rehabilitation, among other things, means nothing without them. Anyone looking for the educational content the category tag implies should also adjust: this is a novel about eighth graders, not a learning resource, whatever the listing says.
How little this series condescends is what persuades me. The girls disagree with their mothers, the mothers are wrong about roughly as often as they are right, and the classic novel the club reads is allowed to actually matter to the plot rather than serving as decoration. Ten and a half hours in that company is a genuinely good use of a family's car journeys.
Can I start the series with the Dear Pen Pal audiobook?
Better not. This is the third Mother-Daughter Book Club novel, and the opening assumes you know all four girls, their families, and a returning antagonist whose improvement one reviewer flags as a development. Begin at the first book and the emotional stakes here will actually land.
How does the audiobook handle four different points of view?
That is the assignment Cris Dukehart is credited with. Four girls of the same age, the same town and often the same room have to stay distinguishable for a young audience, and letters run through this installment by design, adding a second register that has to sound written rather than spoken.
Why is a toilet review on this audiobook's page?
A cataloguing error, almost certainly. A November 2013 entry in the review pool discusses a second toilet order, its packaging and its installation bolts, with no reference to the novel. Ignore it, and treat the useful count of written responses here as four.
