Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen (review)

What can you do when you’re a social outcast in eighth grade, with glasses, braces, and blotchy skin? Real-life teen Maya Van Wagenen gives her answer in this autobiographical title of an experimental year: reinvent yourself according to Betty Cornell’s Teenage Popularity Guide, originally published by a teen model in 1951 and picked up by your geeky dad in a used bookstore. Focusing on one or two topics per month, and ignoring the open-mouthed exasperation of her best friend, Maya changed her diet, grooming, and posture, donned a girdle and pearls, forsook dungarees for smart cardigans, and went out of her way to overcome her shyness in response to Cornell’s crisp admonitions. The results of her makeover, adorned with photos and related in a style replete with dry humor and deadpan observations, are a complete hoot. The comments students make on her retro-inspired hair and outfit experiments might be read as mean-spirited, but her delivery is matter-of-fact, as if she herself is determined to treat their responses as data in an ongoing experiment with an uncertain outcome. The reputation she earns over the course of her year has her rethinking what it means to be popular; from her point of view, the walls she breaks down in the social landscape of her school are worth the strange and sometimes pitying looks she endures. Her early years as a socially abused nerd seem to have strengthened her skills of critical observation and rendered her fearless in the face of ridicule, but it may be her unwavering ambition to be a writer that carries her through her year with the admirable tenacity of a budding social researcher; clearly, this fifteen-year-old author is a talent to watch. Between an intro by Betty Cornell herself, a notice that her guide is being republished, and the success of Maya’s transformation, junior high may begin to take on a whole new (old) look.