I found this book to be both wonderful and refreshing. “How Not to be Popular” had main themes around friendship and growing up.

I loved that the book was set in Australia as I have an interest in the Australian lifestyle, generally.
I like to read books that are aimed at girls of middle school age as they bring back many favourable memories for me, reading-wise.

“How Not to be Popular” centred on a girl named Maddie who wanted to be popular but never quite fitted in. The booked explored issues of bullying and of behaving in a certain manner because others expect it of you, even though it will cause distress. It contained a poignant lesson to take away about kindness.

I loved “How Not to be Popular” by Cecily Anne Paterson and found it to be an extremely worthwhile read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wombat Books for the complimentary ARC. This is my honest and totally voluntary opinion.

How Not to be Popular by Cecily Patterson is a fun middle grade morality story that’s all about doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.

Maddie is in her final year at Kangaroo Valley School. That means the chance to be voted Girl Leader of the school at the end of the year—something she’s always wanted. She’ll have to be popular to be voted Girl Leader, but that shouldn’t be a problem. She’s in the popular crowd in Year Six, not one of the ordinaries, and certainly not strange. Not like Tahlia, who wears funny clothes and plays with chickens.

But things start going wrong after the school camp at the beginning of the year.
Maddie does something she knows was wrong. What does she do about her friends, and about Tahlia? How does she reconcile her need to be popular with what she knows is right?

Yes, How Not to Be Popular is a middle grade morality tale about the importance of being a good friend and telling the truth. But it’s not at all preachy, nor is it predictable (as middle grade fiction can be). Maddie tells her own story (in first person point of view), and that saves it from any possible preachiness.

Instead, we’re inside Maddie’s head as she struggles with the consequences of her actions and her conflicting goals: to do right, and to be popular.

And things don’t always go according to plan. How Not to Be Popular is a fun story with a serious message. But that message is presented in such a way that I’m sure it will keep pre-teen girls engaged and reading … and will hopefully give them cause to consider whether it’s better to be kind or to be popular. Recommended.

Thanks to Wombat Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

This was seriously Middle Grade, maybe suitable for 8-10 year old kids. I am definitely not the target audience for this book.
Like, I read Princess Diaries when I was 13 and I think that had more mature content than this. Honestly, not my typical read as an adult but it should be an enjoyable read for kids.
I will try to review this from a kid's perspective.

This was pretty much reminiscent of the Mean girls/popularity drama that we all went through. But there are some great lessons for children on how to navigate that path with empathy, and how eventually that actually doesn't matter in life.
Also, how you shouldn't judge people on looks, something that we still keep doing even as adults.

This book begins with Maddie, somewhat of a goody-goody, looking forward to a school weekend camping trip. Maddie is desperate to join the group of popular girls, and not be stuck with the regular ordinary girls in her class. The popular girls are not really interested in Maddie, only in how they can use her to their benefit, and Maddie is coerced to pull a prank that causes her guilt and remorse for the rest of the novel. The book follows the girls through the rest of the school year and we see Maddie following after the popular girls, desperately trying to be cool herself, and often ignoring the girls attempts to get rid of her or be downright mean to her.

The portrayal of the mean-girl behavior and the shy, doubting Maddie brought me right back to my girlhood. I found that it was incredibly realistic. I think that girls in middle school would enjoy this book and could probably relate to Maddie's desire to be cooler than she was and her guilt over bad choices. I think this book would also be great for discussions between parents and children. Maddie often misinterprets mean girl behavior or gives the popular girls the benefit of the doubt, when an adult reading the book can clearly see the deliberate behavior. Maddie is often manipulated by the mean girls to do risky things they wouldn't do themselves because they know Maddie wants to be a part of the group. Maddie also learns empathy for a classmate who has a very hard and sad home life, which is also good for beginning a discussion between parent and child readers.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, found it to be realistic, and helpful for discussing with children how to navigate friendships and relationships.

Special thanks to NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

An admirable attempt but unfortunately this book was unable to sustain my attention. Perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the narrative arc.

Maddie is excited. It’s year Six and she wants to be chosen at the end of the year as The Girl Leader of the school. Her plan is to be friendly, help everybody and be popular. But things doesn’t turn out as she expected. While trying to Ben popular and fit with her friends, she did something wrong. But keep it secret it’s been hard and Maddie is feeling less popular by the day. She will realise what really matters in life, how your true friends are. A very special story, perfect for children and young teen and for their parents, in order to better understand our children

Sorry 10% in and this is just not the book for me. The girl is trying to be kind, but I just think she is pretty dang horrible. She keeps having these mean thoughts (really mean thoughts), and the only thing that is stopping her from saying them out loud is because her mom's words. Wow. Plus, I so don't like how she treats her sister. I get that her sister is a bit slow, but you are not her mom, so stop acting like it.
Plus, so far the story is not capturing me, in fact I am pretty bored. This is the second time I tried this book, and I am already happy I got further than the previous time (only 4%), but still I don't think I can handle 90 more % of this girl.

Since I have to put up a rating, I will go for 1 star. Generally I don't really rate DNF books.

Today’s featured book is How Not to be Popular by Cecily Anne Paterson and I would like to thank both NetGalley and Wombat Books (the publisher) for providing me with this free e-book in exchange for an honest review. I started it yesterday afternoon and finished it this afternoon since I couldn’t put it down.

So what is this book about?

This book is about a girl called Maddie who desperately wants to stay a part of the cool crowd at school. At school camp, Maddie is forced to make a choice, just how far will she go to be popular? The book follows her beyond camp, across the school year seeing the choices she makes and the consequences (both good and bad) that they lead to.

What I liked . . .
- The small town nature of the book. (I’m from a big small town and I’d love to move to a smaller one, but until I get the chance to do that, I’ll just have to live my small town dreams through books.)
- How Australian it was. (Although most of the books I’ve read this year have been by Australian authors, they haven’t had things that remind me of my childhood and are set in places that I can easily imagine in my mind.)
- That there were bad things that happened and responsibility was taken. (I think in a lot of Middle Grade fiction the protagonists do bad things and don’t make amends for them, but here we see Maddie facing up to them and dealing with the consequences.)


What I didn’t like . . .
- Being popular has never interested me so I didn’t really connect with the main complication of the book but I know that it is a struggle for many girls in the target audience so I’m grateful that I never experienced that struggle.


Conclusions

My Rating 💭/2purpose 💭/2originality 💭engagement 💭/2writing skill 💭enjoyment

Star Rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This book was a most wonderful and refreshing read. It’s a book about friendship and growing up well, even when life is hard or you’ve made poor choices. This book comes out next Friday, so go pre-order your copy today. If you’re curious about Australian life, go buy it. If you are Australian, buy a copy to take a trip down memory lane, or find a new friend your own age. Buy a copy for a tween girl in your life or for yourself. It’s currently among my favourite books of the year.

This wonderful little book is set in Australia in Kangaroo Valley. Never having any experience with Australia, I enjoyed looking up terms like doona, Nutbush City Limits and Wollongong. I also learned that a child in school who is year six, is 11 or 12, like grade six in the U.S. The voice of the book is a girl named Maddie. Maddie has a keen desire to hang out with the populars, not the ordinaries and definitely not Tahlia. Why does Tahlia like those chickens so much anyway. Maybe Maddie can open her heart one day and find out. The populars or K-Girls the call themselves, are okay with Maddie hanging around them, but she is never included in the elite little group. The K-Girls because all their names begin with the letter, K further excludes an M-Girl like Maddie. This doesn’t deter her struggle to gain their approval. The desire to be popular prompts Maddie do do things her upbringing tells her conscience not to do. She makes her mistakes and suffers the consequences. Her true character shines through as this coming of age story unfolds.
I hate to label books as gender books, but this is definitely a good read for 4-6 grade girls struggling with identity
The Australian writing was most enjoyable.

Maddie is struggling with the normal difficulties of being a sixth grader. At the top of the list is trying to be popular. When you are a pre-teen or teenager, it always seems to be the most important thing in the world. Maddie is feeling excluded by the K-girls and is trying to do just about anything to fit in and be accepted. Unfortunately, they nudge Maddie into playing a cruel prank on another girl and it backfires. Not only does she feel badly but now the K-girls now have "blackmail" on her.

This book was an entertaining approach at showing how bullying and doing things because other people say you should can cause pain and issues for you or other people . It demonstrates that Maddie learns a valuable lesson about how that behavior is negative. If the "popular" people want you to do something which is hurtful to yourself or other people, then you should know not to do it.

I think the book was written in a way that will appeal to the pre-teen crowd and hopefully help solidify their thoughts before they have to start dealing with some of these issues themselves.

Maddie wants to be popular, and so she hangs out with the popular girls, even though she finds, in the 6th grade, that she isn't quite fitting in, because they have decided to call themselves the K-Girls, and there is no K in Maddie's name.

So, she thinks the way to get back into their good graces is to pull a mean prank on one of the ordinary, non popular girls, Tahlia. But this only makes things worse, because now the mean girls, I mean the popular girs have something to hold over Maddie, and she feels miserable that she pulled the prank.

But, she also learns that they aren't really her friends. Not if they want to do her harm.

It is so hard when you want to be in a group that doesn't want you. And there is nothing wrong with being weird, like Tahlia, who loves chickens and lives with her grandfather because she does.

This is a delightful story of how to navigate and fail, and try again to get through sixth grade, when the K-Girls don't have your back.

And although this is Australian, the words that are different from American words, can be figured out in context.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

My first from this author! Enjoyed this one allot! Great characters, engaging plot and perfect for a quick lesson in kindness and friendship! Thank you netgalley for the free arc in exchange for an honest review!

A really good, engaging read with a valuable lesson to be learned about kindness. I loved the characters and it was well-written. I'm definitely going to be reading more from this author.