Maya Van WagenenRecensioni

Cute!

This is an incredibly sweet, upbeat story of a young girl who decides to change her life. She is eloquent, funny, and has managed to tell an amusing story of life in the eighth grade while also shining a little light on the somewhat tragic state of violence in poor communities, and drugs in school. She is certainly an author worth watching.

A delightful read. Looking forward to the film adaptation.

So, I was billed that a "teenager" found an old "How to Be Popular" book and decided to implement it for a year and see what happens. I think only middle schoolers consider 13 year olds to be teenagers. I think this book would have felt quite different if written even by a 14 year old, but the maturity gap between middle school and high school looms large, and I found this too juvenile to appeal to an adult audience. In addition, I found myself really judging the amount of makeup, attempted dating and dieting that occurred. To be fair, I judge the relationship of adult women and makeup, dieting and weird interactions with men, but I simply don't think middle school is the right age for these things.

I also felt really disheartened by the throw-away comment at the end that in her pursuit of popularity, Maya found herself distanced from her actual close friends. She seems overjoyed that she now has lots of friendly acquaintances, but I felt really sad for her. As someone who's been on both sides: a few really close friends, and a lot of friendly acquaintances (the key to being popular in my current life is having an adorable small child, and I succeeded!), it's the few close friends that are worth the long time investment.

So, juvenile book or old-fashioned fuddy-duddy reader? You decide.

This would not normally be my cup of tea, but the author is so incredibly impressive (published at age 15!), and so engaging, that I was drawn into her world and really enjoyed getting to know her and her family.

so cute !!

teen/adult memoir/middle school survival. 8th grader Maya carries out the steps in a 1950s guide to teenage popularity (including the part about wearing girdles and shining shoes), working her way up to doing the unthinkable: sitting at all of the various table cliques in the lunchroom, including the jocks, the uber popular crowd, and the gangsters. Inspirational to anyone needing help fitting in/making friends (basically everyone) as well as to aspiring young writers.

This book is also extremely well written and edited, so it's all-around terrific.

Initially I really liked the author's voice and thought she was funny and charming. And although it has a somewhat positive message at the end of the story, it spends so, so, so, so, SO much time reinforcing the idea that a girl's value is in her appearance that it just bummed me out. Granted, this was a memoir by a teenage girl. Almost more of a journal or diary. Real life rarely has movie-quality moments of clarity or a happy ending but it still just didn't seem to share anything new.

I really enjoyed this book! I knew it was a memoir before I even started reading, but it was very well written, especially for a girl who was only in 8th grade! I realize she probably did a fair amount of polishing before it got published, but I still enjoyed it!

I think Maya's struggle with trying to fit in hits close to home for many teenage girls and boys as well. I like her unique approach in following the advice of an old how-to book that she had found and in the process, learned a lot about herself and others. In the end, I think we're all trying to fit in somehow.

Maya has a good writing style and I do hope we get to hear more from her in the future!

I really enjoyed this book! I knew it was a memoir before I even started reading, but it was very well written, especially for a girl who was only in 8th grade! I realize she probably did a fair amount of polishing before it got published, but I still enjoyed it!

I think Maya's struggle with trying to fit in hits close to home for many teenage girls and boys as well. I like her unique approach in following the advice of an old how-to book that she had found and in the process, learned a lot about herself and others. In the end, I think we're all trying to fit in somehow.

Maya has a good writing style and I do hope we get to hear more from her in the future!

I really enjoyed this book! I knew it was a memoir before I even started reading, but it was very well written, especially for a girl who was only in 8th grade! I realize she probably did a fair amount of polishing before it got published, but I still enjoyed it!

I think Maya's struggle with trying to fit in hits close to home for many teenage girls and boys as well. I like her unique approach in following the advice of an old how-to book that she had found and in the process, learned a lot about herself and others. In the end, I think we're all trying to fit in somehow.

Maya has a good writing style and I do hope we get to hear more from her in the future!

My friend, a librarian at the tiny Poe Library on Sullivans Island, knows me as a former school librarian, so she put this book in my hands and said that they had just had a lively Saturday morning book discussion about this book. "It's YA. And the author was at YallFest." The author wrote in while in Middle School.
I was a socially awkward middle schooler with glasses, zits and armpit stains, just like the author, and the book certainly resonated with my memories. I could have never created such an action plan for the path to popularity, the way Maya did, and I found myself cheering her on as I read.
I read a couple of her short essays on the web, and she is an author to watch!

This title was named to the YALSA list of 10 Best Non-Fiction for YA's in 2015, and it deserves the accolades. The author wrote it during her 8th grade year in Brownsville, Texas. I found it engaging and honest. It was full of teen aged angst but it was not overwrought. The tone was perfect for an author of her age. I could see and understand the pain and anguish of a girl in puberty trying to find her place among her classmates and friends while navigating the labyrinth of pitfalls that is junior high school. This was a very well done book, and might well make my best of the year list.

The memoir starts with the discovery of a 1950's book on how to be popular written by a then well known teen model Betty Cornell. At first the author and her family make fun of the book, but then the author's mother suggested that the author might like to try some of the advice. She did. Taking one chapter to emphasize each month and do one thing from that chapter to improve herself. This format allowed the author space to tell what she learned during each month and let the reader know whether the author was satisfied with the results of that month's experiment or not.½

Popular is about a teen named Maya, who decides to follow a popularity guide from the 1950s. Maya is someone who has always been a social outcast, but this year she decides to change that. She finds a book written by a teen model from the 1950s, and decides to do follow one chapter each month. Maya starts off easy, and progressively does harder things each month. Since the book was written in the 1950s, some of the information was outdated. Maya ends up wearing longs skirts, pearls, and even a girdle to school. She starts wearing make up and even gets to talk to the author of the guide herself. One of the last chapters is sitting with different groups at lunch, which according to her is destroying the social pyramid. Maya stars off slowly with sitting with some of the other geek groups, and works her way up. After making some new friend Maya finds out she's moving. The last thing she decides to is invite all of the single people to the dance with her. The story ends with her getting almost everyone to go, and dances with as many people as possible.

I would give this book four out of five stars because, it was funny, it was a great story, but it took a while to get into. Popular was a funny book. It was great to read about Maya's adventures and the outdated changes she made to her life. The book was a great story because it was inspiring. I found Maya's courage very inspiring, which turned it into a great story. Although Popular was a great book, it did take a while to get into. Once you got into the book it was great. Overall Popular was a good book and I give it four out of five stars.

4.5 stars really. This book was like a real life "Star Girl" my Jerri Spinelli. It made me laugh and almost cry a little.
I want my daughters to read this when they are in the 8th grade.

This book is wonderful! It is an interesting and refreshing look at what it means to be popular and how the definition has changed and stayed the same throughout generations. Maya is funny and sweet in her honest and candid response to 1950’s popularity. She lives near the border with Mexico and makes several disparaging remarks about Hispanics living nearby. This is disheartening because her story could appeal to all students, but there is an undercurrent of racism that is unnecessary in her story.

Readers will find themselves laughing so hard they need to run to the bathroom in the witty and honest memoir by Maya Van Wagenen that is Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek. Maya is an eighth grade outcast at her extremely poor middle school in southern Texas. With only one friend her family moving at the end of the year would go seemingly unnoticed until Maya finds Betty Cornell's guide to popularity from the 1950's. Written in diary format as Maya shares her attempt at popularity and her commentary as she tries everything from dieting to girdles readers are pulled through a whirlwind year of using age old tricks to break down modern stereotypes. As a self proclaimed nerd, this book really resonated with me in a lot of ways. The breaking down of social stereotypes in this book was wonderful and something I can relate too as someone who is very nerdy yet still has the confidence to walk up to a complete stranger and introduce myself to them. The humor in this book was fantastic and very honest and one of the main reasons I loved it so much. The fact that this novel took place when the author was in 8th grade made this book feel less like a memoir and more like a young adult novel and I think this really contributed to my ability to enjoy this book. Overall I would highly recommend this book for middle school and high school age readers because the struggles the author faces will resonate with them.

1.5 stars.

Reviewing and rating this book was complicated, because there are many things that the main character does that I don't like and even found absurd. It would not be a problem if she were just a character, but she's a real person.

I'll start by saying that I didn't like this book. That it was short and really fast to read was the only reason why I finished it.

First of all, I found the title misleading. There's nothing that suggests that this girl is a geek. I was disappointed, as the geek part was what made me want to read this book. The Spanish title, Como me convertí en popular (How I became popular) is much more accurate. The author may be a geek, but there's nothing in the book that even implies it. Maybe her (or her school's) deffinition of geek is very different to mine.

The concept of this book is interesting, but I was a bit surprised by how innocent and naïve Maya was. Yes, she is thirteen and in some cases it's very obvious how young she is. For example, when she tries to reach out to others to convince them to go to a school event with her instead of skipping it because they don't have a date, she forgets that being a good friend also means respecting that not everybody likes the same things. She definitely shows that she's young when she keeps bugging them to say yes and doesn't take into account that not having a date may not be the reason why they don't want to go. Even if it is, they're free to choose not to go. However, there are other things that she does that seemed too naïve for thirteen, especially for someone who defines herself as a social outcast at the bottom of the popularity list. She takes fashion advice from a book written in the 1950s and wonders why people stare and laugh. The general ideas, such as showering/bathing regularly, ironing your clothes and wearing something nice to work are timeless, but she wears the exact clothes that the book suggests. I couldn't believe that she wondered why people were laughing. When I started this book, I thought that she was going to adapt the 1950s information to the 21st century, but she follows everything as it is in the book.

I liked how she realises at the end that all the people in her school have much more in common than they think. This was probably the only message in the book that I liked. I strongly disagree with most of what this book suggests. I'm not familiar with the US school system and my school was very different from Maya's, but the idea that thirteen year olds should wear make-up is ridiculous to me. There are a few other things that didn't make sense to me and made me wonder if someone more familiar with her culture and life style would have liked this book more. Maya's family doesn't have enough money to buy new clothes, so they get them in second hand shops, but it's implied that they eat dessert (and not of the fruit variety) and crisps-like snacks very often.

There's one thing I wondered that was never answered in the book. Her parents seem to be nice, so why don't they tell her how absurd some of the items in Cornell's book are? Can't they predict the result of some parts of her experiment? Also, there's a moment when her father (or her mother, I can't remember which one it was) tells her to keep everything a secret. It sounds a bit odd without further explanation and it made me wonder how much of her real diary was edited or how much of what was happening was never in her diary. Also, everything sounded just too nice and I never got the impression that she was an outcast. She has a few friends and the worst that she got were a few sarcastic (somewhat hurful at most) comments from her class mates.

2015 Rating System: 5

I really enjoyed this book. I spend every moment since opening the book reading it. It was that good. It was also a let down in some ways as well. I was hoping it would make me really cry. I did shed a few tears, but after a YouTuber I follow talked about it, I was expecting a bit more. But hey, I have to take it for what it's worth.

The book is written in a series of diary entries, but there is enough dialogue to make it feel like a book. I generally hate non-fiction and find it extremely boring. Maya's book is far from that. It's real life, but it's entertaining. There are a few surprises as well. There's a death, a school lock down, and drug wars going on on the other side of the boarder. You also get to look forward to finding out "how to be popular" through Maya's experience and through the tips of the 1950's book she uses as a guide.

Why some of the practices are a bit shallow, like doing hair and makeup and dressing a certain way, others apply to anyone. The most meaningful chapter to me was the one where Maya had to break out of her shell and sit with everyone in the cafeteria. I especially enjoyed the reaction she got from the popular kids.

I moved around a lot when I was in school, and I learned to adapt pretty easily, but I never considered myself popular. I used the term "floater", which basically meant I hung out with everyone. I was in the marching band (as a flag girl), theater, would have been in choir but it conflicted with band as theater, youth group, FCCLA, FCA, and I was an honors student who loved to hang out with friends in the library (and play chess). One time I got kicked off of the guidance office for having too many people come in to hang out with me. For the most part, I was comfortable around everyone except the most popular people. It wasn't until after high school while I was in the Navy that I realize "cool" people actually liked me.

In Maya's case, she's not a floater, she is an outcast. She's in choir, but feels kind of like I did around the most popular people. Throughout the book she learns to really step out of her shell and meet new people in a way that I always wished I did but never had the guts to. Not only that, but she does it wearing girdles on her "quadruple" bum and Vaseline on her eyes. It's hard enough to try to get others to accept you when you are in clothes you like. Doing what she did was super ballsy. I honestly don't think I could have dressed like that. I was an education major for a while and was dressed more professionally than the teachers I was observing, so I know a little about how she must have felt, but as a student it would have been even more embarrassing.

Part of this book made me think of the MTV show called MADE, where teens have a dream to be something, like homecoming queen, and these professionals come in and train them to achieve their dream. Those kids had a difficult time with trainers backing them. Maya did it all with just a book.

Now I will say, Maya has an awesome family dynamic. They aren't without their struggles, but they really love each other and you can tell through the pictures inside of the book and through her writing. I really enjoyed the mom, who was getting up early every morning to do Maya's hair, or was taking her clothes shopping at the thrift store.

Maya and her dad's relationship when it came to her crush on Ethan was pretty comical. I also loved Maya's favorite teacher. We all need supporters like that. Oh, and the fortune cookie thing, now that was just spooky accurate. Throw away the 8 ball and order some Chinese takeout.

Her best friend Kenzie was pretty realistic. I don't think Maya sugarcoated any of her negative reactions. I liked the other students as well. They were flawed but came around in the end.

So what really surprised me? The writing! It was really hard to believe a 15 year old wrote it. There were a few words I had to think about for a second, and I'm a summa cum laude graduate. Either Maya is extremely intelligent (her maturity level supports this), or she had a really good editor who wanted the writing to appeal to an older audience. Either way, Maya did an excellent job. The entries way perfect in length and quality of content. Everything was nice and concise.

As far as usefulness goes, this book is a wonderful addition to anyone's collection. It a read-once-and-shelve book for me, but I want to hold onto it and let my future kids read it. Maya is an inspiration, not only due to her experiment with popularity but also because she wrote a book at 15. It's a best seller! I wish I were that talented. I'm sure she has no issue with popularity now!

Anyway, if you want to try out something a bit different, I highly recommend that you read this book.

PS. I cried when her teacher died, when she was talking about her deceased sister, and when she realized her friend might only think she's beautiful because of his autism (plus a few random moments)

So impressed by this young author. I think that all Middle school girls should read this book! Maya Van Wagenen is wise beyond her years.½

As with many others, I thought Popular was, at first, a fiction book. Imagine my surprise when I learned a 14-year-old girl wrote it! The concept is fun and inventive--I just wish Maya would have put a more modern spin on the etiquette and beauty tips in her guide.

What is popularity? How do you achieve it? Can anyone become popular?

Following the advice laid out by teen model, Betty Cornell, in her 1951 _Teenage Popularity Guide_ (ISBN:978-0-525-42747-6), 8th grade student Maya Van Wagenen chronicles her year climbing the social ladder by stepping outside (way outside) of her comfort zone.

A sweetly written book, carrying a positive and timely message, _Popular_ will appeal to middle and early high school students.

Awards: YALSA Award For Excellence In Nonfiction Finalist

I loved this book and read through it quickly. It's so honest and charming. I would recommend it to everyone. Maya has a talent for writing and is very brave. I couldn't do half of the things she pushed herself to do now let alone when I was 13. I can't wait to see what else she does and I recommend getting this for young women in your life especially.

Just as she's beginning eighth grade, Maya discovers a copy of a 1950s popularity guide in a storage box. Finding her own social status to be lacking, she vows to devote each month of the new school year to a chapter from the book, wholeheartedly following its advice, and then assess whether her popularity is changing.

Popular is a quick, charming read. Maya's youth and inexperience in writing show through occasionally, but are easily forgiven as she candidly describes her peers' reactions when she arrives at school one morning wearing a full-length skirt and pearls. Her parents are almost unbelievably supportive, and one scene with her father had me laughing out loud (a rarity). I admired Maya's courage and gumption; to do what she did took some serious guts, more than I ever had at that age.

I really enjoyed this book. I tend to like memoirs so it isn't surprising. Toss in that fact that it refers to a vintage book written about social advice and I was sold.

Maya is a good writer for one so young. I'd love to meet her or then woman whose book affected her so greatly, Betty Cornell. I hope some of our kids will read Maya's book.