Secrets, Lies, and Algebra

Tess is an eighth grader who loves mathematics and uses algebraic ideas such as axioms, theorems, and the number zero to make sense of her life. In this first book of the Do the Math series she discovers how much both math and life can change in eighth grade: friendships shift, the social order at school becomes harder to read, and she has her first crush. When a family friend dies under mysterious circumstances and she witnesses a cheating episode at school, Tess has to think about injustice and ethics and decide whether staying silent is really the safest choice. The novel follows her attempts to apply mathematical reasoning to problems that have no simple solution and to work out which principles she can rely on while her own life keeps changing.