All-American Girl

Top Five Reasons why Samantha Madison’s life isn’t a bowful of cherries:

#5 : Sam lives in Washington DC, a hop-skip-and-jump away from the White House (ergo, perennial traffic jams caused by the never-ending presidential motorcades)

#4 : Sam is the middle-child, stuck between the perky-cheerleading elder sister Lucy and girl-genius-going-to-special-school younger sister Rebecca (ergo, she is the source of constant disappointment to her parents, teachers and the rest of her school-mates)

#3 : Sam’s one great talent is that she can draw. Drawing is the one thing in her under-achieving world that she is confident of (ergo, her mum promptly enrols her into the renowned Susan Boone’s Art Class and the renowned Susan Boone promptly redresses Sam’s high-falutin’ opinion of her artistic abilities.)

#2 : Sam is considered to be a freak of humungous proportions thanks to her decision to dye all her clothes black for the new school year (ergo, a non-existent social life)

#1 : Sam has never had a significant other, mostly because the significant other she desires is her sister Lucy’s boyfriend, Jake. Jake is the epitome of the sensitive artist and Sam is convinced that he is her soulmate (ergo, she moons from afar and eats her heart out on the kitchen table)

So there you go : Samantha Maddison, a typical American teen with her typical baggage of teenage angst . But one fine day while slacking off from art class, she saves the American President from being assassinated by a trigger-happy psycho. Overnight, Sam is a national hero. Everyone wants to know her and congratulate her. Reporters routinely fling themselves on the family-car just to get a candid shot. She’s having dinner at the White House. She gets appointed as the United States Teen Ambassador to the UN. AND she is hobnobbing with the president’s son, David (who is quite easy on the eye).

All-American Girl is one of Meg Cabot’s finer teen reads. The characters are a blend of the predictable and the unexpected. The plot is fresh and handled with the characteristic wit of Ms.Cabot. Homilies are effectively stitched in and you come away with a little smile playing on your lips.