Friday 1 August 2014

Review: Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen

18667753Title: Popular: Wisdom for a Modern Geek
Author: Maya Van Wagenen
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Pages: 272
Series: -
Release Date: April 15th 2014
Where I Got It: Chapters
Synopsis: A touchingly honest, candidly hysterical memoir from breakout teen author Maya Van Wagenen 

Stuck at the bottom of the social ladder at pretty much the lowest level of people at school who aren’t paid to be here,” Maya Van Wagenen decided to begin a unique social experiment: spend the school year following a 1950s popularity guide, written by former teen model Betty Cornell. Can curlers, girdles, Vaseline, and a strand of pearls help Maya on her quest to be popular? 

The real-life results are painful, funny, and include a wonderful and unexpected surprise—meeting and befriending Betty Cornell herself. Told with humor and grace, Maya’s journey offers readers of all ages a thoroughly contemporary example of kindness and self-confidence.

Maya Van Wagenen
Maya Van WagenenMaya Van Wagenen is fifteen years old. When she was eleven, her family moved to Brownsville, Texas, the setting of Popular. When not hunched over a desktop writing, Maya enjoys reading, British television, and chocolate. She now lives with her parents and two siblings in rural Georgia. She is a sophomore in high school but still shares a room with her sixth-grade brother. Remarkably, they have not yet killed each other.




Review

I read this book on July 7th 2014.


Amazing debut by Maya Van Wagenen - the 15 year old who published a book! Amazing, I could never imagine publishing a book now, let alone so young! It's amazing for her to be published so young.

Popular was an amazing true life story that I just enjoyed so much! It was so easy for me to compare, as I was not popular at all in my elementary years. I'd seen this book first on Christine (polandbananasBOOKS) channel and thought it sounded like something that might be inspiring to read. I was sort of an outcast that didn't seem to fit it. I had one friend not including my twin sister, and pretty much everyone else was an acquaintance. When I read this book, it had me going back to my eighth grade years wondering if I'd found a book like Maya had, if I'd have been brave enough to follow through on an experiment the way she had. I was quite amazed at her results and that really popularity is all just... confidence really.

I loved reading about Maya's experience and could really compare with her and it felt nice to have a true story that I could honestly know wasn't fake and that it wasn't a made up story. Popular was a nice change to all the fiction I've been reading these days and I am honestly saying that any reading fan will enjoy this novel to some extent.

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