Book Review: Mission (Un)Popular by Anna Humphrey

Mission (Un)Popular
Author: Anna Humphrey
Pages: 416 Hardcover
Reading Level: YA
Published: June 14th 2011
Review Source: Hyperion Book
Available: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Indiebound

Summary: (from Amazon) Easier said than done. But, if Margot can learn to control her big mouth (and hair), there is hope. The new girl, Em, from New York, needs a friend too, now that the popular girls have decided she’s “weird.” More accurately, Em is “intimidating.” She dresses like a rock star and doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of her—especially Sarah J., the most popular girl in the seventh grade. Em has an agenda for change at Manning Middle School and wants Margot on her side. Progress!

So, okay, Em has a flexible relationship with the truth, and her secret campaign to turn the tables on the popular girls may involve bending some laws. But after years of enduring Sarah J.’s bullying, Margot finds it hard to resist. Her approval rating is finally up—and, it really couldn’t hurt to take Sarah down a few notches . . . could it?

Endearingly imperfect and utterly charming, Margot Button is irresistible in this heartwarming novel about friendship, bullies and the travails of middle school.

I liked this book, but was surprised at some of the things the unpopular girls did to the popular girls to make themselves more popular. I've never seen the movie "Mean Girls", but imagine it was something like this book.

It has been a while since I was in 7th grade, but I could relate to Margot within the first few pages of this book. She is a very real character, with lots of emotions, just like your typical 13 year old girl. She is not popular and wants more than anything to be popular--what 13 year old wouldn't want to be popular, right? She finds out within the first few days of school that her best friend would not be joining her in 7th grade...what in the world was she going to do? Margot was heartbroken and lost, but the friends vowed to do what they could to stay best friends. That changed pretty quickly, and that's one thing I was pretty surprised about-that they didn't fight harder for their (so-called) best friendship. There was a misunderstanding when Erika came to Margot's house and her new friend, Em, slammed the door on her face. Rather than chasing after her best friend or even trying to make amends, Margot just lets her go...since she has this shiny new friend who could possibly give her everything she wants out of life, or at least out of 7th grade.

I was surprised at some of the things Em did or encouraged Margot to do in order to increase their popularity level. Some were slightly innocent, but others were life threatening and really hard to read. It was sort of nice to see the underdogs becoming more popular as the book went on, but I didn't like the way they went about it-cheating, lying and hurting others.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. Margot was my favorite, followed by her free-spirited, Tarot card reader mother and her husband. Em was an interesting character, as was Sarah, and in the end they weren't so different. The best part of this book was that it had a happy ending, which makes me happy. :)