Review: Best Friends: The Orion Sessions by Cheryl DaVeiga | Review & Guest Post
An uplifting reminder that the most important voice to listen to is your own.
Middle school can be a difficult time to figure out who you are, especially when friendships shift and fitting in suddenly feels more important than being yourself. In Best Friends: The Orion Sessions, Cheryl DaVeiga explores those challenges through the story of thirteen-year-old Orion Casey, a girl who has stopped singing after finding herself on the wrong side of the social hierarchy. When mysterious messages begin encouraging her to rediscover her confidence, Orion must learn to trust her own voice-both in music and in life.
About Best Friends: The Orion Sessions
Best Friends By Cheryl DaVeiga
Series: Orion Sessions, #1
on April 2026
Genres: Middle-Grade
Formats: Audiobook, eBook, Paperback
Pages: 105
At thirteen, Orion Casey has stopped singing—and it’s not because she stopped loving it. After the girls everyone follows start talking about her instead of to her, she’s done performing for anyone.
Then the mysterious messages start. Anonymous. Encouraging. A little too perfectly timed.
Someone’s been watching her—really paying attention—and part of Orion can’t help hoping it’s the one person she wishes would notice her back. The texts spark a confidence she didn’t know she had—enough to discover songwriting and find her way back to music.But as friendships shift and secrets surface, Orion begins to wonder: when your sense of self keeps changing based on who’s watching, how do you figure out who you really are?
Perfect for readers ages 10–13, Best Friends launches The Orion Sessions, a contemporary middle-grade series that blends music, friendship, and self-discovery. Written in a fast-paced style and paired with original songs readers can listen to, this coming-of-age story explores the pressures of middle school—where belonging, betrayal, and social media can shape how you see yourself.
The novel was shared with 7th graders at Dodd Middle School in Connecticut before publication, where Orion’s story resonated strongly with students.
Early Praise:"The only downside... it's over too soon—Kirkus Reviews"An amazing opening to the Orion Sessions Trilogy."— Readers' Favorite"An overall joyful read."—Independent Book Review
Want to read the short prequel? It's free! Go to the Orion Sessions site or social media sites @TheOrionSessions.
Reader Resources
Explore ratings, reviews, and more:
Review at a Glance
| Genre | Contemporary Middle-Grade Fiction |
| Series | Orion Sessions, #1 |
| Audience | Ages 9-13 |
| Length | 144 pages |
| Content Rating | G |
| My Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ |
Quick Take: A warm and relatable middle-grade story about friendship, confidence, and learning to embrace who you are.
Content Considerations: Written for middle-grade readers. Themes include friendship challenges, peer pressure, social exclusion, self-esteem struggles, and identity development. No significant content concerns noted.
My Thoughts on Best Friends: The Orion Sessions
Middle school can be a difficult time to figure out who you are, especially when friendships change and fitting in suddenly feels more important than being yourself. In Best Friends: The Orion Sessions, Cheryl DaVeiga captures those challenges through the story of thirteen-year-old Orion Casey, a girl who has stopped singing after losing confidence in herself and her place among her peers.
At first glance, this story may seem geared primarily toward girls, but as Orion's journey unfolds, the themes become much more universal. Friendship, kindness, self-acceptance, confidence, and learning to value your own voice are messages that will resonate with readers of all backgrounds.
One of the things I appreciated most was how relatable the story felt for its intended audience. Cheryl DaVeiga has a gift for writing age-appropriate characters and situations without talking down to her readers. The struggles Orion faces feel authentic, and her emotional growth develops naturally throughout the story. The anonymous messages add just enough mystery to keep younger readers engaged while encouraging them to think about how much of their self-worth should come from the opinions of others.
I also especially enjoyed the discussion questions included at the end of the book. Whether readers have a parent, teacher, librarian, or book club to discuss them with, the questions encourage reflection and help reinforce the story's positive themes. They invite readers to think more deeply about friendship, confidence, and what it means to be true to themselves.
In Conclusion
For young readers navigating the ups and downs of middle school, Best Friends offers an uplifting reminder that kindness matters, true friends are worth holding onto, and the most important voice to listen to is your own.
More From Cheryl DaVeiga
Cheryl has visited the blog many times. You can find those reviews in the author hub.
Guest Post: The Art of Becoming Smaller
Today, author Cheryl DaVeiga shares a personal reflection on the middle-school experiences that helped inspire Orion's story and the themes explored in Best Friends: The Orion Sessions.
The Art of Becoming Smaller
By Cheryl DaVeiga
There's something you should know about me:
Music has always been one of the deepest parts of who I am.
I love singing it, writing it, listening to it. I can get completely lost in it.
Which is why it's strange to look back and realize that in eighth grade, I slowly started walking away from it.
I didn't know it then, but I was also walking away from parts of myself.
A new understanding of what was "cool" and "not cool" had arrived, and suddenly I was editing myself to fit in. It went something like this:
- Chorus: not cool
- Piano lessons: not cool
- Playing flute in band: not cool
- Sitting around with cool kids listening to cool bands? Very cool.
- Actually participating in music? Apparently not.
And it wasn't just music.
In English class, I wrote an emotional essay about one of my rock heroes. My teacher loved it. She gave it an A+ and read it aloud to the class. My eighth-grade self wanted to disappear under the desk. Hearing my words read aloud felt like standing in front of the class with my diary open.
Middle school has a way of making kids study themselves too closely. Suddenly, you become aware of everything-how you look, what you like, where you fit in, and where you don't.
It turns out I wasn't alone. Studies have found that confidence often drops sharply during the middle school years, especially for girls, as social pressure and comparison begin to take over.
Without realizing it, many kids begin creating the version of themselves they think others will accept.
I certainly did.
I quieted the parts of me that felt too different. Too exposed.
At the time, it didn't feel dramatic. It felt practical. Like survival.
But looking back now, I can see it clearly:
I wasn't becoming more myself. I was becoming less.
And it took years to get her back.
After a career in business, music found me again. I discovered songwriting and became completely hooked.
Then writing found me again too.
Slowly, the creative parts of me that had gone quiet in eighth grade started speaking again.
That journey became part of the inspiration behind The Orion Sessions.
Like me, Orion loves music. But somewhere along the way, she starts believing it's safer to become invisible than risk being judged.
Until music finds her again.
And through it, she begins finding herself too.
In many ways, Orion is the girl I wish I had been in middle school: the one who figured out what was happening.
If there's one thing I hope kids understand, it's this:
Middle school can get very loud about who you're supposed to be.
But the most important voice is the quiet one inside you saying:
Be the one and only Beautiful You!
Before we wrap up, here's a little more about the author behind the story.
About Cheryl DaVeiga
About Cheryl DaVeiga
Cheryl DaVeiga grew up loving music—singing, writing, and dreaming in melodies. Following that passion was never framed as a real option, so she chose a path that felt defined and practical, building a career in accounting and eventually becoming a partner at a national firm.
Years later, she found her way back to the music she had set aside, becoming an award-winning songwriter recognized by ASCAP and ultimately discovering the joy of writing children’s books. Across her seven picture books—stories infused with music, humor, and sing-along joy—her work has received award recognition from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Mom’s Choice Awards (Gold), Purple Dragonfly Book Awards, and Literary Titan.
But even as she wrote those playful stories, she knew there was another one waiting—one rooted in the girl she used to be and the voice she had tucked away. That story became The Orion Sessions, a middle-grade trilogy for kids growing up in the real world—with music, of course. The Orion Sessions is the series Cheryl wishes she'd had when she was twelve: full of music, friendship, mistakes, courage, and the journey of reclaiming the voice she’d hidden to fit in.
Cheryl lives in Tucson with her partner, Doug, and they spend summers in New Jersey. She still sings… like all the time.
Explore more from the author:
Website | Amazon | Goodreads
Thanks for reading. If this sounds like your kind of story, you can explore purchase options below.
Support Local Bookshops
Prefer to support independent bookstores? You can shop Best Friends: The Orion Sessions through Bookshop.org below.
If the widget does not load right away, you can refresh the page or use the direct Bookshop link above.
View Best Friends: The Orion Sessions on BAM
Happy reading-and thank you for supporting indie authors and stories worth discovering.
Tour dates: June 22-July 10, 2026 To see the full schedule of stops, visit the
iRead Book Tours - Best Friends: The Orion Sessions Tour Page.
Thanks for spending part of your reading time with me today.
Get Friday Finds + Bookish Extras
Join me for Friday Finds, cozy reads, and bookish discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Leave a comment