Overview
After ten months of living in the White House, seventeen-year old Meg Powers knew she should be used to the pressures of life in the spotlight—but she wasn’t.
In addition to the usual senior year worries—college applications and Josh, her first serious boyfriend—Meg had to live up to what was expected from the President’s daughter. She had to suppress her sense of humor and watch the way she dressed and spoke. And she had to try to have a normal relationship with Josh despite intrusions by reporters and secret service agents who followed her everywhere.
Then, just when everything was already so difficult, a shocking attack on her mother makes life in the White House even more impossible. Meg, her father, and her two younger brothers find they must turn to one another for solace and support—while her mother’s life hangs in the balance.
Synopsis
After ten months of living in the White House, seventeen-year old Meg Powers knew she should be used to the pressures of life in the spotlight—but she wasn’t.
In addition to the usual senior year worries—college applications and Josh, her first serious boyfriend—Meg had to live up to what was expected from the President’s daughter. She had to suppress her sense of humor and watch the way she dressed and spoke. And she had to try to have a normal relationship with Josh despite intrusions by reporters and secret service agents who followed her everywhere.
Then, just when everything was already so difficult, a shocking attack on her mother makes life in the White House even more impossible. Meg, her father, and her two younger brothers find they must turn to one another for solace and support—while her mother’s life hangs in the balance.
Publishers Weekly
Meatier than the well-crafted, believable The President's Daughter, White's sequel continues to chronicle events about the family of Katherine Powers, first woman President of the U.S. Meghan (Meg) is 17 and, with her younger brothers Steve and Neal, endures life in the spotlight while trying to carry on normally in private at home. Madame President and First Gentleman Russell are respected and she's doing well until a psycho wounds her seriously. Unsure whether she will recover, Russell and the children suffer severe traumas that they express in their own ways while relying on each other for solace and support. The media are more of a burden than ever; the author clearly delineates the effects of unremitting assaults as well as the Powerses' dignified ways of handling them. Apart from its novelistic merits, the book prompts thought on the burdens of public office, the need for character in the elect and their families. (12up)
Editorials
From the Publisher
“Apart from its novelistic merits, the book prompts thought on the burdens of public office, and the need for character in the elect and their families.”—Publishers Weekly“These are situations under which Meg has no control; it’s a harsh reality of her life, and of anyone’s life, that sometimes our choices are narrower than we’d like.”—A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Publishers Weekly
Meg, now a junior at an elite D.C. private school, has more or less adjusted to the constant scrutiny of being First Daughter and dealing with the Secret Service when a would-be assassin seriously injures her mother. White seems to understand the workings of the White House as well as any Beltway insider, and she imagines Meg's complicated responses with psychological insight and grim humor-think Cynthia Voigt crossed with Meg Cabot. Here is Meg, finding a photo of herself in a news magazine, taken as she sits alone in a hospital corridor, face buried in her hands: "The First Daughter in a moment of private grief, the caption said. And it was private. It didn't seem right that they could publish that.... The kind of picture that was going to show up in Year-in-Review issues." Nothing is easy or glib: the dramas, Meg's and the entire family's, are explored slowly, sometimes elliptically, invariably rivetingly. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.