Helpful Score: 2
A well-written story of a mother and her 6th grade daughter, exploring popularity, cliques, and the way some mothers tend to invest themselves in their children's lives.
I really found it wonderful and believable, with great characterizations. The girls and the mothers as well seemed as real as the group behind you in the carpool line.
I really found it wonderful and believable, with great characterizations. The girls and the mothers as well seemed as real as the group behind you in the carpool line.
Helpful Score: 1
A disturbing look into the cult of popularity in middle school. Highly recommend!
Helpful Score: 1
Very awesome coming of age story for mom and daughter--Makes me glad I am not a teenager anymore and scared to raise my own teenage daughter :)
Helpful Score: 1
a wonderful book about being a mother of a tween/teenage girl and having to watch her deal with the trials and tribulations of cliques- think "Mean Girls" from the mom's perspective.
Suprisingly good
This is a terrific book...especially if you are a Mom of a middle school daughter. So true...the inane pecking order, the capricious changes of friends and popularity. I wrote a review of it:
A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel was recommended to me by my best friend for 20 something years Amy, who has a daughter who is a Junior at a private school in Boston. But private or public, the book will make you laugh and cry, see yourself, see your daughter, see your school, see the craziness of our society, etc.
It is a quick read...good fiction. Describes so poignantly the phenomenon of girls and how mean they can be and how popularity can seem like the ultimate goal...and yes, how the moms want their kids to be happy (which in some cases means the MOMS are pushing them to be popular). Some of you may not have heard my take on popularity which is this:
If popularity is defined as having more people like you than anyone else and there are more unpopular people than popular people and none of the unpopular people like the popular people then aren't "the populars", by definition, unpopular???
Hmmm....think about that for a few minutes...and if it seems like a conundrum go have a glass of wine and then think about it. It will still be a conundrum, but you will have enjoyed a lovely glass of wine while thinking about it!
I e-mailed the author with my kudos for the book and she was kind enough to send me a very nice reply. And as a somewhat bizarre coincidence, Amy who recommended the book to me was talking about it to her sister-in-law who was visiting them and it turns out that Carol, the sister-in-law knows the author! Amy is married to Doug who is Carol's husband's brother. I remember being in Amy & Doug's wedding along with the brother and when it came time to figure out who got in whose car to go from the church to the reception, I went with Gordon because he had a bottle of Dom!!!! Carol wasn't at the wedding for some reason...pregnant maybe? And I'm not sure she knows I sped off with her husband because he had champagne...but that's as far as it went!
A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel was recommended to me by my best friend for 20 something years Amy, who has a daughter who is a Junior at a private school in Boston. But private or public, the book will make you laugh and cry, see yourself, see your daughter, see your school, see the craziness of our society, etc.
It is a quick read...good fiction. Describes so poignantly the phenomenon of girls and how mean they can be and how popularity can seem like the ultimate goal...and yes, how the moms want their kids to be happy (which in some cases means the MOMS are pushing them to be popular). Some of you may not have heard my take on popularity which is this:
If popularity is defined as having more people like you than anyone else and there are more unpopular people than popular people and none of the unpopular people like the popular people then aren't "the populars", by definition, unpopular???
Hmmm....think about that for a few minutes...and if it seems like a conundrum go have a glass of wine and then think about it. It will still be a conundrum, but you will have enjoyed a lovely glass of wine while thinking about it!
I e-mailed the author with my kudos for the book and she was kind enough to send me a very nice reply. And as a somewhat bizarre coincidence, Amy who recommended the book to me was talking about it to her sister-in-law who was visiting them and it turns out that Carol, the sister-in-law knows the author! Amy is married to Doug who is Carol's husband's brother. I remember being in Amy & Doug's wedding along with the brother and when it came time to figure out who got in whose car to go from the church to the reception, I went with Gordon because he had a bottle of Dom!!!! Carol wasn't at the wedding for some reason...pregnant maybe? And I'm not sure she knows I sped off with her husband because he had champagne...but that's as far as it went!
