Review: All-American Girl by Meg Cabot

Plot

‘All-American Girl’ is about fifteen year-old Samantha; a middle child, who lives in Washington D.C, with her geeky younger sister, Rebecca, and ‘it’ girl and cheerleader, older sister, Lucy. Samantha is satisfied with being the absolute opposite of her sister: she has dyed her entire wardrobe black, she’s quite happy to ‘flunk’ her German class and plans to rebel against her drawing teacher, Susan Boone.

However, on the day that she skips her second drawing session with Susan her life changes when she jumps on a man who points and shoots a gun at the U.S President and his motorcade. Samantha is then thrown into a world of fame and publicity, since she now seen as a national hero.  She encounters many obstacles: dining at the White House, working with the President but, most of all, she must decide where her personal feelings lie – with her sister’s boyfriend, Jack, who she thought was the love her life, or the President’s son, David, with whom she strikes up a strong friendship.

Good points

There’s no doubt about it, this is a typical teenage novel and, in my opinion, teenage novels are fun. Meg Cabot established an enjoyable chatty relationship between Samantha and the reader which wasn’t too intense like numerous YA novels are. The book was also quite comical and there were many funny lines – which is to be expected from Meg Cabot since she is the author of The Princess Diaries.

Bad points

However,… uh oh. Love triangle alert. This is a deal breaker for me. I’m afraid I was completely put off by the concept after reading The Twilight Saga.

Secondly, I understand that the whole point when writing protagonists is to let them grow into better people throughout the novel, however, I found Samantha very annoying. She was considerably selfish, had no sense of logic and was quite rude. She was also very shallow. In my opinion, it can be forgiven that she loves her sister’s boyfriend (feelings can’t be helped) but it’s when she made comparisons with herself and her sister about who would be the better girlfriend is when it crossed the line for me.

Summary

Rating = 3 stars.

Overall, I liked the novel. It had a cute storyline with a few unexpected twists and the topics were enjoyably light-hearted. However, I have to say, I’m not a fan of love triangles and, to be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of Samantha either. These were the only reasons for why I gave it only three stars.

Additional points

Apparently, there is a sequel and I’m still debating whether or not to read it…

I also might add that the plotline is evidently quite similar to the Princess Diaries: normal teenage girl becomes suddenly world-famous and falls in love. But don’t be put off! It was still an entertaining novel.