Author’s Note: This essay includes the theme of accepting yourself in All-American Girl. I wrote about the main character, Samantha, and how she learns to accept herself throughout the book. What I love about this is that the last sentence of the book reads, “Because it wouldn’t be me.”
Samantha Madison is a nonconformist on the outside of the student body. In her family, she’s known as the black sheep because she is the middle child in her family. Her copper orange hair always frizzes out, which totally clashes with her black ensemble. She absolutely hates her life. In All-American Girl by Meg Cabot, Sam despite the adversity in her life, demonstrates confidence and finds how to accept herself.
Life for Sam is what she calls terrible. She’s gotten used to it; the love of her life, Jack, is dating her older sister, Lucy, who is the most popular girl in school and her parents don’t really pay attention to Sam unless she has bad grades. In the first few chapters, she’s definitely secure and stuck in her ways, but she wants something more: freedom. Freedom, where she could do whatever she wanted and be whoever she wanted, free of the chains of society and family that constantly weighed her down.
Sam wished she could be Gwen Stefani because Gwen was not judged for anything and could do whatever she chose. In German class, she could basically do anything because she drew and art doesn’t have any limitations. Though when her parents see her failing German grades, they send her to Susan Boone’s art classes. She didn't like Susan, a woman Sam thought to be absolutely insane, so on the second day of art class, she skipped and stood outside. A man near her pulls a gun and aims it at the U.S. president! Without hesitating she quickly jumps on the man’s back, saving the president!
Rescuing Mr. President from a near brush at death earns Sam a newfound popularity, not just in school, but all over the U.S.A. She can’t believe that she could perchance be the Teen Ambassador―newly appointed by the president―or let alone a candidate. Sam has gone from a confident Goth to a raven-look-alike, precarious little girl who has been pushed out of her comfort zone into colored clothing, makeup and the spot light.
As a added bonus, Sam ends up meeting the president’s son, David, who is just like her, an outsider in black. As she spends more time with David, they grow closer. He
eventually teaches her that maybe being Sam isn’t all that bad. He points out how her art shows character and her clothes don’t define a person, that is was okay to put on colored clothes again.
Scott Parnel in the Hush, Hush series by Rebecca Fitzptrick is also another person like Sam, who starts out wanting to be anything except himself . He finds out that he is Nephilim, a half human and fallen angel. Now that Scott knows, he discovers new powers and learns to accept them for what they are when other characters show him how to use and control his powers. Both characters in the end, finally accept themselves because Sam and Scott are both special in their own ways.
Everyone is diverse and whether they chose to except themselves is their choice; Samantha and Scott did, because they realized that their lives aren’t all that awful. She may have frizzy hair and be a non-conformist who wears black all of the time, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. If she was anyone else, Sam wouldn’t have known David who taught her it's okay to just be her. Samantha gains self confidence, in spite of her differences, and finds how to accept herself in All-American Girl.