Confessions of a Hollywood Star

by Megan McCafferty

McCafferty captures that same sardonic teenage voice—a girl narrating her way through small-town frustration with wit and self-awareness—but through journal entries that let you feel Jess's interior life even more intimately than Lola's monologues. The humor lands in similar places: eye-rolling at social hierarchies, mock-dramatic declarations about escape, and the complicated loyalty between best friends navigating different futures.

by M.T. Anderson

This is my curveball for you—it's a historical novel about an enslaved boy in Revolutionary Boston, so tonally it's darker than Sheldon's comedy. But Anderson writes with the same theatrical flair and self-aware narrative voice; Octavian is performing his own life even as he's discovering its terrible truths. If you loved how Lola narrates her own drama, you'll be fascinated by how Anderson plays with perspective and unreliable storytelling in a completely different context.

by Louise Rennison

Rennison's Georgia is Lola's spiritual cousin—equally convinced of her own importance, equally prone to catastrophizing, equally funny about the gap between how she sees herself and how the world actually sees her. The diary format gives you that same direct access to teenage melodrama, but Rennison's British humor has a slightly different flavor that'll feel fresh while hitting all the same notes you loved.

by Danielle Forget

Wait—I know the title sounds like it's from 2015, but this captures something Sheldon does beautifully: two girls with a scheme, narrating their own story, treating their social experiment with the seriousness of a Hollywood production. Zappia's Lydia and Harriet are slightly more analytical than Lola and Ella, but they've got that same conspiratorial energy and the same willingness to be ridiculous in service of a goal.