Maureen, a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed dork-a-saurus, is totally addicted to cupcakes and hot dogs and thinks that her body looks like a baked potato. Allergy-plagued Alice can’t touch a mango without breaking out in a rash, and if she eats wheat, her vision goes blurry. Klutzy to the extreme, Barbara is a beanpole who often embarrasses herself in front of the whole school. These outcasts don't have much in common—other than the fact that they are often targets of the the Pretty, Popular, Perfect girls who rule the school. But one day Maureen discovers that the ThreePees are planning to sit next to Allergy Alice in the cafeteria and eat peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches on whole wheat toast with mango marmalade for lunch. And Maureen decides that it's time to topple the eight-grade social regime. She joins forces with Alice and Barbara and the Nerd Girls enter the school talent show, determined to take the crown from the ThreePees. Will their routine be enough to de-throne the popular crowd? Or will their plan backfire and shake their hold on the bottom rung of the social ladder?

The Nerd Girls are back. And though they seek to leave behind all the drama with the popular girls, the ThreePees feel they have a score to settle with the Nerds and will stop at nothing to do so. Fed up with the perpetual infighting, the school principal insists that if the two groups want to continue to "compete" with one another, they will do so in a productive manner and thus forces all six girls, Nerd Girls and ThreePees, to participate in the Academic Septhalon. But Maureen has family troubles. And issues of self-esteem. And a desire to bury her head in the sand and pretend that all of the very real issues she's facing as a kid who is now growing up are not really happening to her. Are cupcakes, a sarcastic sense of humor and a hope that it will all "just go away" on its own enough to get Maureen through eighth grade? Will Beanpole wake up and smell the coffee? Will Alice really be able to cure herself of the allergies that plague her? It's A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions, a fast-paced, funny, foray back into the lives of the three nerds we got to know and love in Nerd Girls Book I: The Rise of the Dorkasaurus.