Rating: Summary: Awesome! Review: A very moving book..Filled with Laughter,Love, and finding out not everyone is perfect. A real page-turner. Recommended to anyone who feels like they don't belong.Samatha Madison (Sam for short) is just an All American Girl. Being stuck in the Middle of her Family isn't always easy. Her Older Sister Lucy is popular, pretty, and everyone at school worships her. Her younger sister Rebecca, is smart, cocky, and very witty. While Sam is average,artistic, gothic-minded girl who is just looking for a place to belong. Sam has one true love. Jack, her Sister Lucys boyfriend is artistic just like her, and have many similar qualities, likes, and dislikes, Though she can never tell him how she feels. All the Emotions bottled up inside of her, waiting to explode at any given time.But her sister Lucy, has other plans. After snitching on Samantha about selling Celebrity art during German class, her caring Parents sign her up for Susan Boones Drawing class, where Susan says to draw what you "See" not what you "know"..Which leads to Sam saving the President from being shot by a Billy Joel freak who knew the song "Uptown Girl" too well. The whole world screaming her name, Sam finds herself in a new world. Her sisters, Parents, and a snobby popular girl at school are now suddenly all on her side, and Sam begins to lose thought about whats important. Then she meets David, the Presidents son who is cute, fun, and knows what Sams going through. And Sam finds herself falling in and out of love with Jack, and giving her heart away to someone who truly wants it, and wants her.
Rating: Summary: Formula 1 Again Review: All-American Girl was a fairly fun read. It had humor, romance, and the general angst of being a fifteen year old girl. It read quickly and provided me with some cheap, easy entertainment. The best thing about this book was all the background characters and many subplots- like when Sam has to choose the winning painting for a national contest, and when she meets Susan Boone at the art studio. The problem is that it's so much like the books from The Princess Diaries series: something drastic changes the life of and ordinary, flat-chested girl, who has to juggle her new fame as well as the normal issues of being a teen. The main character, Sam Madison, thinks she loves one guy, then in the end discovers that someone else is meant for her. Surprise, surprise. And the voice of the story screamed Mia Thermopolis. Both girls wallow in their own self-pity and use a confusing mixture of sophisticated and dreadful language. Meg Cabot made some clever changes when she created Sam, such as making her an artist and a middle child with somewhat normal parents-but still, Sam and Mia were a lot alike. I'd say you should pick up this book at the library or borrow it from a friend first, and then if you see yourself re-reading it, by all means go buy it. I've read it twice, the second time for the quirky little details, like all of Sam's Top Ten lists, and my conclusion is: this book is enjoyable but nothing new.
Rating: Summary: WOW! Review: This book is awesome! Meg Cabot Puts an awesome amount of feeling. Sam is a girl whos life is much less than perfect. (She lives in dc) When her parents catch her selling pictures they send her to susan boones art studio for classes. They she embareses her self. Next week she skips class and she stays in the music store downstairs. Sure enough the prezadent comes and a guy who was in the music store pullz out a gun. Sam jumps him and she save the prezes life!! Now shes a hero and The prezes son might have a crush on her. This book is good fo kids 10 and up or mabye so 8&9 yr olds. A MUST READ!!
Rating: Summary: My Favorite book EVER!! Review: This is the best book I have ever read! Meg Cabot is a great author, and it totally shows if you read this book. (She also writes the Princess Diaries, for anyone who didn't know). The main character is Samantha. She likes No Doubt, hamburgers, and art. She is the middle child,and between her genius sister Rebecca and her drama queen sister, Lucy, she happened to be the oddball. She goes to John Adams Preparatory School with her best friend, Catherine and Lucy. Sam also likes to write lists. *The Top 10 Reasons Why I Can't Stand My Sister Lucy* is the one that starts out the book, including humor and explaining about Sam's feelings for Lucy's boyfriend,Jack, and how she is always being compared to Lucy. The #1 reason why Sam can't stand her sister? Lucy told about the celebrity drawings, which forces Sam to take art lessons. She takes them, and after a quarrel with her new art teacher, and being embarrassed in front of a cute boy (David, the president's son) she vows not to come to the next lesson. Though trouble ensues when she is playing hooky: An alleged shooter attempts to kill the president! What does Samantha do? She jump on the man's back, forcing the bullet to miss the president. Unfortunately, Samantha's arm is broken, so she goes to the hospital. Sam also becomes aware of the star and hero she has become. Read the rest to find out what happens!
Rating: Summary: All American Girl is one of the BEST books I have read! Review: Samantha Madison is a 15-year old red haired rebel. She is a middle child squeezed between her perfect, popular, cheerleading older sister, Lucy and her 11-year old overly intelligent sister, Rebecca. When Sam's grade starts to drop in one class and her parents find out she is drawing and selling portraits of her classmates with celebrities she is in deep trouble. Her parents arrange for her to go to Susan Boone's art studio so she can draw during that time, but Sam is embarrassed on the first day and decides to ditch the next lesson. What Sam doesn't know is her life is about to change dramatically. While standing on the corner waiting for her ride home, Sam somehow ends up preventing an attempt of assassination of the President. This is HUGE. How will her dull life change? Will it be for better or for worse? Meg Cabot did an excellent job writing this book! At the end of many chapters sam writes a list containing 10 points. For example:Top ten things not to do at a press conference and Top ten reasons I would make a better girl-friend for Jack than my sister Lucy. I would recommend this book to teen girls who enjoy fairy tale like books. This novel is fun, joyful and has realistic set and plot. The book is filled with teen love, teen issues and makes you want to never put the fun filled book down!
Rating: Summary: The Best All-American Book Review: This was the best book I have ever read. It has romance, humor, and I can relate to the characters. All-American Girl had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Now I can't wait to read Meg Cabot's other books! Samantha Madison is a sophmore at John Adams Prepatory School in Washington DC. She lives with her ever so popular cheerleading big sister, Lucy, her certified genius little sister, Rebecca, her mom and dad (who are mostly never around), and her housekeeper, Theresa. When Sam gets caught selling celebrity drawings at school, she earns a one-way ticket to Susan Boone's Art Studio for drawing lessons. There she meets this really cute guy named David (not as cute as Jack, Lucy's boyfriend. Sam secretly is in love with him). When Susan Boone criticized her for not drawing what she saw, she never wanted to go back. The next week, Sam didn't go to her art lesson, she hung out in the CD store downstairs instead. Then, when it was time for Theresa to pick her up, Sam waited by the curb like nothing was wrong. But before Theresa could get there, Sam saved the president from being assassinated and broke her wrist at the same time.From then on, she, Samantha Madison, was an international heroine. The next few weeks for her were pretty hectic. She learned that David was the son of the president (that was a big shock to her), every big news show, like Dateline and 20/20, wanted to interview her (even though she didn't think her story would last an hour), her enemies were inviting her to the parties that only the in-crowd got to go to, she was appointed teen ambassador to the UN, she was invited to dinner at the White House, and she was blackmailed by Susan to go back to her drawing lesson. And to top it all off, Lucy says that she is falling out of love with Jack and into love with David, and Sam believes it!! If all of that happened to me in one week, I would surely flip out! I highly recommend this book to any teenager or preteen that likes to read about real life. I think the lesson Sam learned in this book will be valuable to everyone.
Rating: Summary: From good to bad, great to worse, then horrible to wonderful Review: All-American Girl is absolutely a Must-Read! However, in this book 5'2, sophomore, teenage, and artistic girl Samantha Madsion goes through MANY changes! Like when she ditches her second art class at the Susan Boone Gallery (because of drawing in her German notebook and her mom putting her on probation to take a class of art), she actually sees the president of the United States! The president was walking in this Cookie store with his "security guard-men", so this Billy Joel fan guy near Sam takes this gun out of his coat and then...KABLAM!!! Technically, the "Kablam!" wasn't what happened at all. Instead, Sam saves the president by making the Billy Joel fan assasssinator shoot his gun in a different direction! Since the guy was heavy, he landed on top of Sam and she injuries her wrist. So these people come and take her to the hospital. And then Miss Samantha's life changes forever! By becoming a hero, totally popular and famous, becomes US Teen Ambassador, gets invited by her enemy's party, and even the president's son David falls in love with her! There are some big surprises and laughs and dramatic moments in this American book too! Sam's life goes good to bad then so on.... But, I had also liked when Meg Cabot dedicated this novel to the heroes of the September 11th attack! I was impressed, all right! So All-American Girl is one of the best Young Adult Books to get at the library or at the bookstore. It might have been really different than Cabot's Princess Diaries series, but this book was better, to be honest. I mean, she put some good things in it. Like things about art. The "listening and hearing" and the "seeing and imagining" parts was pretty creative, in fact. If you like books about love, semi-drama, laughs, surprises, and especially about America, then you'll this book.
Rating: Summary: Must-Read for Teens Review: Samantha Madison was just your average teenager, trying to cope with life's little problems. Her older sister is the most popular girl in school, her younger sister is a genius, and she's stuck in the middle. Everything was going pretty smoothly, until her older sister finds Samantha's "celebrity portraits" in her notebook that she uses for German class, and shows them to her mother. Samantha's mom then signs her up for art lessons, thinking that it will be helpful to Samantha if she had "an outlet for all her creative energy." These art lessons lead into something very unexpected that everyone in the entire country will soon know about. The author, Meg Cabot, writes very skillfully and cleverly. The plot is so far-fetched and unrealistic, but that's what grabs the reader's attention. Mixed in with the unbelievable plot are practical things that many teens actually deal with that make the events seem so real. Cabot illustrates her characters with great detail, almost making them come alive. Cabot also gives comical top 10 lists for numerous topics that relate to Samantha's experiences, such as "Top ten things not to do at a press conference" and "Top ten ways you can tell that you have suddenly become one of the In crowd". The themes of this book are ones that many teens can relate to, such as romance and just getting through high school. The author writes very well, using simple and easy to understand vocabulary. I would recommend All-American Girl to teens that enjoy an amusing and humorous book, without difficult and challenging vocabulary. It's a real must-read for all teen girls!
Rating: Summary: My Favorite Review: This is probably my favorite book! I was so sad when it ended! I wanted it to go on forever! I really hope she writes a second part to it. I want to know how she ended up!
Rating: Summary: I'm sorry, this book was terrible Review: Okay, does anyone else realize how completely vacuous this book is? I don't know if it's because I'm getting older (I'm 18 now but was 16 when I read it) and just can't handle this type of book anymore, but I don't think that's it. I thought the Princess Diaries were hysterical and hey, if they were a little predictable, at least they made me laugh. I also enjoyed the Mediator series she wrote under her real name (Jenny Carroll...but I don't think that's how you spell it) although not the other series, the 1-800-Where-Are-You books. But this was just tedium. Of course teens/tweens can relate to the characters, they're as cookie-cutter as they could possibly be! And I'm sorry, how painfully predicable (to the point of stupidity) is the "love story"? Oh, there's this really cute boy, oh my gosh, what if he likes her? Blah blah blah romantic entanglements with predictably all-wrong-for-her third party, oh no what if she screwed up! Nope, completely out of the blue he still likes her. Whatever. Throw in some curves now and then, will you? For heaven's sake. And the lists really got on my nerves after a while. If you're a Cabot fan, stick with the Princess Diaries, and the Mediator books, which if they lack resolution are at least entertaining, as this book decidedly was not.
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