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Avg. Rating: 4.5
Cute by nothing memorable
I am a big fan of Meg Cabot's adult books, and a couple of her YA. I read How to be Popular looking for some light, entertaining reading. It was alright, not bad, but not anything that kept making me want to read. It wasn't a total waste of time, but had I known what it would be like, I probably would have skipped it. After having read Geek High and especially Cindy Ella, this book paled in comparison.
Meg Cabot Does it Again!
For every girl who has gone from being nobody, to somebody, to nobody again, this is an uplifting story that I rate highly up there with Jerry Spinelli's wonderful Star Girl books. Meg Cabot always knows how to touch readers of any age with situations all of us who weren't so popular can relate to from any era, and combine them with contemporary humor that will only be slightly dated years from now. For every girl at any age, this is a great story about finding out who you are and what you're made of in both the nastiest and most hilarious storms of your life. No umbrella required.
Being popular isn't as fun as it looks....
In the book, How To Be Popular by Meg Cabot, this realistic ficton book takes place in Bloomville, Indiana, a small country town. At Bloomville High School, Stephanie Landry has been made of for five years after a public accident when she spilled a Big Red Super Big Gulp all over the skirt of the most popular girl is school. Since then, she has been made fun of by people saying "Don't pull a Steph Landry!" But what happens when Stephanie and her best friend, Jason are going through the attic in Jason's house and finds "The Book" on, you guessed it, how to be popular. She follows the advice and and then awesome things happen and some not so awesome things happen. What happens? Well you will have to wait and see.
"The thing is, thought, it's okay. Because I've got The Book now and it's going to save me." - Page 18.
My opinion is that this book should be read by teenagers. It shows how becoming popular does not always solve your problems. Steph does change and hang with the A-Crowd at her school Jason freaks out after Steph changes majorly, and Becca freaks out too,but her best friends are confused also because Steph because she changed to be so different, that she is not acting like anymore. Plus, she figures out that there is some hidden feelings about her best friends that she didn't even know about which leads into an adventure on how to figure out what's going on. The thing is, that the unpopular Steph would have never tried to be popular if she didn't find the book and Steph learns you have to take risks or people would have never stopped making fun of her if she never learned to have confindence.
Meg Cabot writes another excellent book showing the diffcult lives of teenagers. I can't imagine how much time it took to figure out popularity and have to write this book about it. The way she portrayed Stephanie's point of view was excellent and I learned that being yourself will make you popular in your own way. I would recomment this book to anyone that likes Meg Cabot's books or to teenagers that are looking for a book to read that will make sure it will grab your attention.
Would probably make a great film
And maybe that's why in places this just doesn't quite gell but it's entertaining.
Five years ago Steph Landry spilt a Big Red Gulp on Lauren Moffat's white skirt, irreparably staining it. Lauren coined a phrase, "to do a Steph Landry" or "to do a Steph" about this for anything that people do wrong. It's stuck and it's the bane of Steph's existence. About that time Lauren dropped Steph as a friend and is the most popular girl in the school.
Steph has found a old book on becoming popular and decides to enact some if the ideas in it (updated some of the ideas of course, kid gloves and control pants for example being things to drop). She wants to be noticed by the cool people instead of being relegated to being friends with Jason and Becca who are definitely not part of the in crowd!
While she does this she finds out who her real friends are and finds love. While also finding out what popularity can really mean. The lessons she learns from the book are not only what it has that's right but what's wrong with some of it's ideas. Maybe it is okay not to be part of the popular crowd.
It's not a deep read, nor is is incredibly realistic on some levels as the timescale is a bit shortened for realism but it's a fun read and I found myself laughing out loud at bits of it.
A Fun Summer Read!
How To Be Popular is another good book by Meg Cabot. The characters are easy-to-relate to and you can get involved in their stories. This is a classic example of a good beach read. Although it's a bit predictable; that hasn't stopped me from reading it more than once! I would recommend reading this book. As for parents- this book really does have a good moral for your children.
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