''All American Girl'' is a

young adult novel Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...

written by

Meg Cabot Meggin Patricia Cabot (born February 1, 1967) is an American novelist. She has written and published over 50 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series ''Princess Diaries'', which was later adapted by W ...

. It reached number one in ''

The New York Times Bestseller List ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

'' for children's books in 2002. A sequel titled, '' Ready or Not'' was released in 2005. Meg Cabot also wrote a short story, "Another All-American Girl" included in ''Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out''.

Plot summary

Samantha Madison lives in Washington, D.C and is a sophomore at

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

Preparatory School. An outcast, she has only one friend, Catherine. Sam is a huge fan of

Gwen Stefani Gwen Renée Stefani (; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, fashion designer and actress. She is a co-founder, lead vocalist, and the primary songwriter of the band No Doubt, whose singles include "Just a Girl", "Spiderwebs ...

and often laments that she is not more like Gwen, though she is against most other aspects of

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

and dyes her entire wardrobe black because she is "mourning for her generation." A middle child, Sam often feels inferior because her older sister, Lucy, is a

cheerleader Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

, 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 school for gifted kids. Sam is very different from her traditional parents—her father is an international economist at the World Bank and her mother is an environmental lawyer. 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 and claiming that teenagers need to ''fight the system''. Sam is an aspiring artist and draws celebrity portraits during her German class, which she has a C− in. Her sister Lucy finds out and shows them to the family at dinner. As a punishment, her parents decide to enroll her in bi-weekly art classes at local artist Susan Boone's studio. Sam goes to her first class where she is reprimanded by Boone for

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

what she knows and not what she sees. Offended, Sam decides to skip the next class choosing to occupy her time at the nearby Capitol Cookies and Static (a record store). While she is waiting for her housekeeper to pick up from art class, she notices a man she saw earlier at Static who was listening to Billy Joel's "

Uptown Girl "Uptown Girl" is a song written and performed by the American musician Billy Joel. The lyrics describe a working-class "downtown man" attempting to woo a wealthy " uptown girl". It was released on September 29, 1983, on his ninth studio album, ...

". The man turns out to be an assassin and as he takes a gun to shoot the President who is exiting Capitol Cookies, Sam jumps on him and causes him to misfire. She breaks her arm in the process as the man falls on top of her when she jumps on him. In the aftermath, Sam becomes a celebrity and is declared a national hero. She is also appointed Teen Ambassador to the United Nations. She is no longer a social outcast and becomes popular at school, where she receives numerous social invitations and even gets sucked up to by Kris Parks, her nemesis. When she meets the President, she also meets his son who turns out to be David from her art class at Susan Boone's. As she gets closer to David, she deals with her conflicting feelings for Jack—who she thought was her soulmate—and the President's son.

References

External links

- Meg Cabot's Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:All American Girl 2003 American novels Novels by Meg Cabot American young adult novels Novels set in Washington, D.C. HarperCollins books