How to Be Popular
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| How to Be Popular | |
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| Author | Meg Cabot |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Young adult novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Publication date | July 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 304 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0060880120 (first edition, hardback) |
How to Be Popular is a young adult novel written by Meg Cabot and published in July 2006. It was considered by the Daily Telegraph as a "heartwarming, funny tale".[1]
[edit] Plot summary
Steph Landry is a high school junior from Indiana. In sixth grade, she spilled a Big Red Super Big Gulp on the most popular girl in school, Lauren Moffat, ruining her white D&G skirt. Ever since that incident in the cafeteria, anyone who has made a mistake or come close to making are told, "Don't pull a Steph" or "Way to pull a Steph!".
Steph's friends are Becca and Jason. Jason and Steph have been friends since the Big Red Super Big Gulp incident and enjoy stargazing together on a hill in town. Steph has a crush on the student council president, Mark. Unfortunately, Mark and Steph's nemesis, Lauren are dating.
Steph's grandfather and Jason's grandma (Kitty) are getting married to Steph's mother's disappointment. Steph's grandfather builds a observatory in her honor because Jason likes astronomy. When Steph, Jason, and Becca are cleaning out Kitty's attic so Jason can move in, Steph finds a book called "How to Be Popular." She finally knows how she is going to become friends with the "In Crowd" at school. And "The Book" is going to help her as Steph gives herself a complete make-over, using The Book as her guide.
At the Back-to-School assembly, Mark is talking about raising money for the Senior Class Trip and says they need to put a few car washes together where Steph stands up and talks about having a "Talent Auction". A talent auction, as she explains, is where townspeople can bid on people's talents to use to personal gain for a certain amount of time to profit the tip. For example, if someone needed help on how to use a computer, they could bid on someone who was willing to teach them how to use a computer for a certain amount of time.
She rises in social rank by helping Mark out with a fundraiser for the senior class trip. Mark and Steph begin to get closer, and Lauren becomes jealous and sends mean notes and emails to Steph. Lauren blames those mean notes and emails on her (Lauren) best friend, Alyssa Krueger, even though it was all Lauren.
The auction is on the move and becomes a huge success. Jason bids on Becca, only because no one else would bid on her, except her dad. When it's Mark's turn to get bid on, Lauren's bids $500, but Steph bids $1000, which she got from her Grandpa. Lauren is so upset at her own father for not giving her more money to bid on Mark, she throws her cell phone against the wall and it breaks.
Jason and Becca become unhappy with Steph when she spends more time with Mark and the other popular people than with them. Steph's loyalty to the popular crowd is tested when they ask her if they can have a rager in her grandfather's observatory. Mark kisses Steph, but she realizes it was just to get her to let them have the rager. She refuses when they knock on the observatory door. Jason tells Steph she made the right decision by not letting all the popular kids have a party in the observatory. They both reveal that they have had crushes on each other, one (Steph) since 5th grade, and the other (Jason) since 2nd, they spend a night kissing in the obsevatory and wake up to find they were there all night, everyone was worried about them. In the end, Steph becomes friends with the popular people, when one of them, Darlene Staggs, asks her (Steph) if she would like to watch a Brittany Murphy movie with her later and Steph agrees. She also invites her to go into the coffee place with her. Soon every member of the "In Crowd" joins them inside the coffee place, even Mark and Lauren.
