Tara*Starr and Elizabeth Books in Order

This reading order guide provides the complete list of Tara*Starr and Elizabeth books in order, from the very first to the latest, so you won’t miss anything!

About the Tara*Starr and Elizabeth Series

Some friendships just make no sense from the outside — and those are usually the best ones. Elizabeth and TaraStarr are that kind of friends. Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin wrote two books about them, and honestly, the series is one of those things that is hard to forget once you read it. So, Elizabeth is quiet, a bit shy, and very responsible. She does not like being in the spotlight at all. Her family looks fine from the outside but at home, things are not really warm or open — feelings kind of get pushed aside there. TaraStarr is basically the complete opposite. Glitter, sequins, loud personality, always in the middle of everything. Her parents are the kind of adults who never really grew up, which sounds fun but also comes with its own problems. These two girls should not really click, but they do, completely.
The first book, P.S. Longer Letter Later, starts when TaraStarr has to move to a different city. So now the only way they can stay in touch is through letters. At first it works fine, writing back and forth feels enough. But then life starts getting complicated for both of them. Elizabeth’s home situation gets harder. TaraStarr starts running into things she did not expect. The letters start carrying a lot more weight, and somewhere in the middle of all that, the big question comes up — what happens to a friendship when everything around it is changing?
Then in Snail Mail No More, letters are out and email is in. Things move faster now, which sounds like it would help, but it is not always easier. Elizabeth is dealing with her parents splitting up, which is messy and hard and not something she knows how to handle. TaraStarr has her own stuff going on — some tension with a sibling and this uncomfortable feeling that she and Elizabeth are slowly becoming different people. Being able to message each other instantly means the good stuff reaches faster, but so does the hard stuff. One thing that makes these books really different from most is the format. Every single page is either a letter or an email. There is no narrator telling the story from above — just two girls writing to each other, saying things they probably could not say face to face. It feels very real because of that. Reading it feels less like reading a novel and more like finding someone’s private letters and actually being allowed to read them. This series is really good for anyone who has ever had a close friendship and worried about losing it, or who grew up going through tough family stuff and needed to see that in a book. Both books are short and easy to read, but they leave a real impression. The Elizabeth and TaraStarr series is just one of those duos that sticks with readers, because the friendship between them feels true — imperfect, tested, but real.