SOLVED. YA Fantasy, but set in real world. Girl befriends new girl in school who has a necklace with magical powers that lets her “into” a book/talk to the characters. MC gets necklace but it’s evil & she tries to get rid of it. Read around 2001-2004. [s]

[Ruth]

A girl who is middle school or high school age befriends the new girl in school. One day they have to do a book report in English and she watches the new girl with her hand on the book, staring as if in a trance and writing intently. She later finds out that the new girl has a magic necklace that whenever she is wearing it, she can put her hand on a book and experience the book as if it’s happening to her in real life/talk to the characters in the book, and she used the necklace to help her write the book report. Main character eventually gets the necklace herself (can’t remember if she takes it from her friend or happens upon it somehow), and uses it for herself. Eventually she figures out the necklace is somehow sinister or evil? I can’t remember what events lead to this discovery, or if there are any side effects to using the necklace, but she is determined to get rid of it. She tries a few different ways to dispose of it but it keeps coming back to her. She’s on a swim team and that summer, she finally decides to drop it in the pool and it gets sucked down the drain. There’s also some personifying of the necklace, as if it’s alive and wants to survive getting thrown away. I remember it getting stuck on the drain as if it were trying to stop itself from getting sucked down, and the girl had to dive down and unclamp it before it went down the drain completely. I read it when I was in middle school, I believe, so probably around 2001-2004. It was most likely published around that same time too.

[Becca]

Bad Dreams by Anne Fine?

[Ruth]

Yes that’s it! Thank you so much!