Maya Van Wagenen, bestselling author of Popular, tells Dolores’s story with humor, heartache, and an occasional bit of telenovela flair.
“A striking fiction debut.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An insightful, funny, and realistic coming-of-age story.” —Kirkus
Dolores Mendoza is not thriving. She was recently diagnosed with a chronic bladder condition called interstitial cystitis. The painful disease isn’t life threatening, but it is threatening to ruin her life.
Just when things seem hopeless, Dolores meets someone poised to change her fate. Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones is glamorous, autistic, and homeschooled against her will by her overprotective mother. After a rocky start, the girls form a tentative partnership. Beautiful, talented Terpsichore will help Dolores win back her ex-best friend, Shae. And Dolores will convince Terpsichore’s mom that her daughter has the social skills to survive public school. It seems like a foolproof plan, but Dolores isn’t always a reliable narrator, and her choices may put her in danger of committing an unforgivable betrayal.
Download and start listening now!
"I was inspired by her journey.... Maybe if I had read Popular when I was [Van Wagenen's] age, it could have saved me from a world of hurt, or at least put that world in perspective."
— Maude Apatow for the New York Times Book Review
YALSA Award Winner for Excellence in NonfictionNew York Times Bestseller
Everyone’s happiness project looks different, and I was utterly charmed by Maya Van Wagenen’s honest, funny, and thought-provoking account of her efforts to become ‘popular.’
— Gretchen Rubin, #1 bestselling author of The Happiness ProjectBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Maya Van Wagenen is fifteen years old. When she was eleven, her family moved to Brownsville, Texas, the setting of Popular. When not hunched over a desktop writing, Maya enjoys reading, British television, and chocolate. She now lives with her parents and two siblings in a rural Georgia. She is a sophomore in high school but still shares a room with her sixth grade brother. Remarkably they have not yet killed each other.
Caitlin Kelly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a seasoned voice-over artist with experience in Japan and the United States. She has a BFA in drama and studied musical theater at the Collaborative Arts Project 21, an off-Broadway theater company and musical theater training conservatory. She got started in voice-over work in 2009 while living in Japan where she toured with Disney’s World of English and World Family Club as a performer and a puppeteer.