Through GHQ, I had the opportunity to review a young adult novel by one of my favorite authors. Meg Cabot’s How to be Popular was overall, a cute story that made me nostalgic for my teen years.

The novel stars Steph Landry, a 16-year-old girl whose number one desire, like most teenagers, is to be popular. Her two best friends are Jason and Becca, two self-described outcasts that you just can’t help but like. Steph stumbles upon a book in Jason’s grandmother’s attic called How to be Popular. It is written for a teenager in the ’50s, but a lot of the advice still holds true today. Steph takes hold of the book and makes it her quest for her junior year to become popular. She buys new clothes, changes her attitude and starts partaking in school activities. This desire for popularity stems from an incident in the sixth grade, when she accidentally spilled a Super Big Gulp on the most popular girl in school, Lauren Moffat’s, skirt. That was all it took for Lauren to make Steph’s life a living hell, penning the phrase “Don’t pull a Steph Landry.”

Meanwhile, Steph’s personal life provides plenty of entertainment throughout the story. Her mother is pregnant with her sixth child, Becca decides she’s in love with Jason, her parents’ bookstore is losing business to the Super Sav Mart and Jason’s grandmother and Steph’s grandfather choose to get married.

Basically, we follow Steph as she becomes the most popular girl in school for a week, learns a lesson and then realizes something about one of her best friends. It’s funny because Meg Cabot has this knack for making the most cliche situations (when have we not seen a movie such as this—unpopular girl works her way to the top, learns a lesson about the A-crowd and ends up better for it?) so incredibly entertaining and at times, moving. Even at nearly 23 years old, I related to Steph in so many ways and I feel like most girls will relate to her when reading this story.

I’d recommend it as a quick, fun summery beach read. It’s definitely something to be read in the sunshine with a frothy milkshake in your hand, as it is just that, light frothy fun.