Betty Cornell's Popular Book Report

Popular is a memoir about how a once awkward eighth grader named Maya struggles with trying to fit in at school. At the beginning of the story, Maya talks about how much she hates her school because everyone is given a ranking based off their social status and reputation. However, she soon realizes she wants to see some change in her status as a social outcast. It all starts when she finds the 1950s popularity guide, written by a former teen supermodel, Betty Cornell. When Maya finds the book, she decides to start a unique social experiment to see if the vintage popularity advice works with modern-day. Every month she would try one piece of advice from each chapter of the book. In September, Maya tried going on a diet to lose weight. Even though she lost three pounds, no one …show more content…
Maya is disheartened as she tells Kenzie, her best friend, that she will no longer go to high school with her. Suddenly, Maya is determined to talk to everyone at school before she leaves Texas. Continuing with her social experiment, during the months of March and April, she slowly makes her way to every lunch table and introduces herself. By doing that, she makes several new friends and in May, she decides to host a party. When she hands out the invites, many of the girls say they cannot come because another girl is having her party the same day. Maya is then upset because she wasn't invited to the other party, but decides to give being friendly one last chance. At the end of the year prom, she invites everyone who doesn't have a date to be her date, and it works. Maya then finds out that throughout the year, even though she was humiliated and things didn't always work, she found her true personality and learned how to be confident with herself. She also learned that popularity is based on how nice one is towards others, not how pretty one