Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek (A Memoir)
  • Published: 15 April 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141353258
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $27.99

Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek (A Memoir)

Formats & editions
EBook
15 Apr 2014
Audiobook
10 Jul 2014
Paperback
15 Apr 2014
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GEEK GIRL meets JULIE AND JULIA - soon to be a MAJOR FILM

"School is the armpit of life," my best friend Kenzie once told me. My School is no exception.

A memoir, POPULAR is written by 15 year old Maya - a self-proclaimed 'geek' who's baffled at her school's Social Ladder. The jocks, the volleyball girls, the band kids, the outcasts, it felt like a jungle to her. Then Maya meets Betty - or more specifically, the 1952 edition of 'Betty Cornell's Guide to Teenage Popularity' andshe embarks on a brave - and secret - social experiment.

Maya follows Betty's vintage wisdom - one chapter at a time (from 'poise' to 'personality' to 'hair' - and even her seat in the dreaded cafeteria) for each month of her school year ahead. In POPULAR, she chronicles the hilarious and poignant results - right up to the culmination of her grand experiment: prom.
  • Published: 15 April 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141353258
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $27.99
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About the author

Maya Van Wagenen

Maya 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.

Praise for Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek (A Memoir)

Everyone's happiness project looks different, and I was utterly charmed by Maya Van Wagenen's honest, funny, and thought-provoking account of her efforts to become 'popular'.

Gretchen Rubin, #1 bestselling author of The Happiness Project

Maya Van Waganen's memoir, POPULAR, would have been wonderful to read as a kid, and so reassuring to Nerdy Teenage Me. Her year-long experiment in popularity is timeless; the intelligent and humane way she gets to the heart of the matter is uniquely her. Funny, determined, and wry, Van Wagenan has written a wise, heartfelt guide for other kids eager to keep up.

Rachel Hartman, NYT bestselling author of Seraphina

Geeky and dorky, but never wimpy, Maya Van Wagenen is as powerful and honest as she is quirky and funny-and startlingly gifted. She's the real deal, folks, a teenage John Green for the next generation. Stunning.

Margaret Stohl, bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures series

A talented writer, she's funny, thoughtful and self-effacing . . . Teens will readily identify with her

Kirkus

Popular is wonderful. It is charming, touching, entertaining - and brought back a lot of memories about my own high school anxieties. I will be saving my copy to give to my daughter when she is a little older

Jo Elvin, Glamour