Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Val

Popularity is a really funny thing. Many of us when we are young don't belong to cliques. We find we can sit with another person just ebcause we are in the same math class as them. Its when we reach seventh grade or middle school that the cliques become definite or start to harden. Mikey and Margalo experience this like many other middle schoolers in this novel. Mikey is a petite, tough, stubborn and intimidating person. She makes those around her feel uncomfortable... that is everyone except her friend Margalo. Margalo is a tall thin "piece of clay". While she is unpopular because she hangs out with Mikey she is able to mold herself to fit in with the popular kids because she has them analyzed. She figures that popularity is all about mixing the right bit of flattery and calamity with self confidence. This novel goes through the struggles that Mikeya and Margalo face knowing that cliques are being formed and that there isn't much they can do about it. Throughout the book the reader watches Mikey and Margalo grow from these challenges. Obstacles like when Mikey's popularity halloween dinner turns into a no show party,when Mikey's petition to have seventh graders be allowed to play in eight grade sports is turned down by the principle or when Margaolo is made fun of for wearing a sweater that one of the popular kid's moms donated to a thrift shop. This book although written for a younger audience of middle schoolers provided a douse of reality when I read it. Alot of the concepts and the whole idea of maturing and defining friends is abused constantly in books. But its rare to find an author that portrays populairty and its prizes and prices so well as cynthia voigt. The message this books brings is that although we grow older and unforunately are placed into groups we can always try to change the rules and stir things up because whats life without change?