All American Girl (novel)

Infobox Book |
name = All American Girl
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Meg Cabot
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = All-American Girl series
subject =
genre = Young adult novel
publisher = HarperCollins
release_date = 2002
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-330-41555-7
preceded_by =
followed_by = Ready or Not

Outline

"All American Girl" is a Young adult novel written by Meg Cabot for teenagers. It reached number one in the "New York Times" best-seller list for children's books in 2002. [cite news |title= BEST SELLERS |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E6D81331F931A1575AC0A9649C8B63 |work=New York Times |date=2002-09-22 |accessdate=2008-02-26 ] The story is about a girl named Samantha Madison who lives in Washington, D.C. She is a sophomore outcast at John Adams Preparatory School and has only one friend, Catherine. Sam is a huge fan of Gwen Stefani and often laments that she is not more like Gwen. Unlike Meg Cabot’s Mia Thermopolis in the "The Princess Diaries", Sam is against popular culture and dyes her entire wardrobe black because she is “mourning for her generation.” She often feels inferior because her older sister, Lucy, is a cheerleader, and therefore one of the most popular girls in school, and her younger sister, Rebecca, is so intelligent that she takes college-level classes at a special school. Sam also believes she is in love with Lucy’s boyfriend Jack. Jack is the complete social opposite of big sister Lucy, having an artistic yet rebellious attitude to life claiming that teenagers need to "fight the system".

Plot summary

'All American Girl' starts with Sam getting caught selling celebrity portraits, which she creates in her German notebook. Her mother, an environmental lawyer, decides that if Sam is given an outlet for her creativity, Sam might get better grades in German. Her mother enrolls her into a drawing class taught by a well-known artist, Susan Boone. She is compared to an elf queen by Sam at their first meeting.The first art lesson goes horribly wrong when her art teacher states that Sam cannot "draw what she sees". Taking Jack's advice about 'fighting the system', she decides she does not want to come back to art class, especially since she embarrassed herself in front of the vaguely familiar David, another student in the class who seemed to pay attention to her—something Sam has not experienced before, because guys usually seem to think that she's weird. When Sam’s housekeeper Theresa drops her off for the next lesson, she waits until Theresa leaves before spending the duration of her art class in the next-door music store.

Sam notices a strange man listening to Billy Joel’s "Uptown Girl" over and over. She refers to him as Mr. Uptown Girl. When she leaves the music store, the President’s motorcade stops in front of the cookie store next door. The president (only referred to as Mr. President) walks into the cookie store. As she waits for her ride on the corner, Mr. Uptown Girl begins to pull out a gun, ready to assassinate the President. Sam instinctively distracts the man, breaking her arm in the process. Sam is immediately treated as a hero for saving the President's life. When Sam is allowed to meet the President and the first family, she realizes why David looks so familiar: he is the son of the President. When she is invited to dinner with the first family, she is given the title/job of 'teen ambassador of the United States'.

Sam's confusion about her relationship with Jack and David ensues. In her own mind, she loves Jack, but she is really falling for David.

Sam is then invited to a party hosted by a girl who used to be friends with her but is now horrible to Samantha. She doesn't want to go but her best friend Catherine asks her to because of Catherine's new boyfriend - Catherine wants her boyfriend to think that she is popular - and to see what a popular person's party is like. Sam agrees and invites David. Secretly, although she won't admit it, she is just going to make Jack jealous. However, David sees through this and tells her how hurt he feels - 'I thought you were different.....you were [just] using me to make that Jack guy jealous'.

As teen ambassador, Sam is a judge for a painting contest which Jack enters

Lucy helps Sam realize that she made a horrible mistake and she finally starts to notice that she was or had been falling in love with David and not Jack. Sam see's David from afar like at the meetings she has to attend to as teen ambassador. In art class a few days later David just acts like how he did before, like on the first day she was in the art class. David pass a note wondering if they were still friends, to which Sam replies that she want to be more than friends. David is shocked with this and asks about Jack, Sam replies with "Jack who?" The last note David passed had a heart on it letting Sam know that David loves her.

The conclusion is a week later lettings readers know that Sam and David are together.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

There was no film to be based on the book, the controversy about the movie had started when the page "All-American Girl" was mistakenly posted in IMDb.com, which listed the cast " Raven-Symoné as Samantha and Drake Bell as David". For further proof, Meg Cabot clearly stated in her website:

"No, because there is not going to be a movie of “All-American Girl”. I currently hold the movie rights. The way I can tell that I currently hold the film rights is that no one has paid me for them. I would know if someone had paid me for them, because there would be a lot more money in my bank account that there currently is." [ [http://www.megcabot.com/diary/?p=261] ]

Miscellaneous

*A sequel, "Ready Or Not" was released in 2005.

References

External links

* [http://www.megcabot.com - Meg Cabot's Official Website]