After her mother became the first female President, Meg wonders if her life will ever resemble anything remotely normal. Feeling somewhat like she has a handle on her new school and enjoying a somewhat-normal relationship with cutieboy Josh (even if they can never truly be alone, what with the requisite security agents following her every move), Meg is hoping to simply enjoy her junior year. But it's hard to just be a teenager when the media wants to know every detail of your private life and pictures of her keep cropping up of her doing the most mundane things. Meg is trying to keep everything together when a shocking and horrible attack is made on her mother and Meg and her family are forced to turn to each other in their private, yet very public, grief.If I had simply read the synopsis of this novel, I would have been more than a little skeptical. I mean: female president is attacked - ensuing emotional crisis and shock - trite and overdone right? Just like her other novels, Ellen Emerson White handles this potentially disastrous subject with such careful handling, I couldn't help but be drawn into Meg's family's story. Trust me, this is one of those authors who never does anything half-way: Meg goes through such feelings of anger, shock and pain - all so quintessentially teenage responses but at the same time extremely unique and believable. Each member of her family expresses their grief in different ways and with her dad constantly away from home, it falls to Meg to help keep her younger brothers, Steven and Neal, from falling apart. Leaving Meg unable to fall apart of course. But Meg is more than competent and though it takes everything she's got, she begins to draw closer to her family in ways they never expected.Let's talk cover art for a moment here, shall we? This book is reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' - an extremely iconic work of the Dutch Renaissance. What I think I like best about this cover is that the cover artist chose to retain the same bright blue and yellow color scheme; a very smart choice since the dark background makes such colors essentially pop off the canvas, forcing the viewer to study her in exceedingly up-close-and-personal detail. I get the sense with the juxtaposition of Meg wearing her Red Sox cap and the iconic earring that Meg herself has become a study in contrasts - her tomboy nature clashing with her idea that she must be elegant and as put together as her mother.
I originally read the 3rd in this series and then realized it was a series, doh! I eventually found the first one and about 20 years later I've found the 2nd one, score! I knew most of what would happen since I had read the 3rd one and it referenced this one a bit, but it was still enjoyable. There is a running theme through all of these books, and after awhile it does get kind of old, but over all I still liked it. The 3rd is still my favorite, but I am glad I read this one to finally see what happened. The only really annoying thing is the version I found was the 2008 reprint and they changed a bunch of random crap to make it more appealing to teens today. The tv shows are different and she constantly mentions email and people are on cell phones all over, and none of those were in the original book. OK maybe a random cell phone in the background somewhere, but EVERYONE didn't have one and in this new version they do. It just felt weird since I read the original version of the 1st and 3rd books, and now in the 2nd they use more technology and watch "reality tv shows". Now it's time to reread the 3rd then start the 4th, hopefully I enjoy the 4th more than other people's reviews! Overall I liked it, but if you start the series fresh, I'd find the same versions of all of them so they don't flip back and forth between types of technology and decades of tv!
What do You think about White House Autumn (1985)?
I read this book for the first time as an adult. When younger, I was OBSESSED with "The Presidents Daughter" and recalled trying to find a copy of this book at the bookstores (out of print), the public library (lost), and my school library (never had it). I even searched for it again in college. No luck. So when she re-published the series (and wrote a 4th one) I was excited.Initially, I was really irked by the small ways the book had be updated for the 21st century (and today's youth). Meg didn't need to email or text Beth. Neal didn't need to play games on the internet. And most of all - why couldn't Meg go on drinking Tab?! But, it didn't take long to be quickly absorbed by the plot and emotions of these characters. While I don't relate to Meg in the way I thought I did at age 12, I still thoroughly enjoyed the inner workings of her psyche. I doubt I'll re-read it till the spine breaks, as I did for TPD, but I'm going to start book 3 tonight!
—Uma
Reviewed by Steph for TeensReadToo.comMeg Powers is just a normal teenage girl living in Washington, D.C. -- except for the tiny little fact that her mother is the President of the United States. Meg is actually getting used to living in the big, white house with her parents and two brothers, Steven and Neal. But when a gunman tries to take the life of the President, Meg faces the scary facts about being the First Family. It's up to Meg to comfort her two brothers in between visiting their mother in the hospital and missing their father, who spends all of his time at the hospital, as well. And if that wasn't enough, Meg has to deal with the fact that her boyfriend, Josh, seems to be doing everything wrong. And can her friends really be real if they start acting weird around her because of her mother's accident? Ellen Emerson White writes a compelling sequel about a teenage girl trying to understand the ropes of being the First Daughter. With WHITE HOUSE AUTUMN, the readers see a different side to the first family -- how stressful and scary it is to control security in an uncontrollable world.
—Jennifer Wardrip
Meg Powers’ story continues as she becomes more comfortable living in the White House. She finds friends at her high school, including a boyfriend named Josh. In her family’s first fall in the White House, Meg’s mother, the president, is attacked in an assassination attempt.As Meg’s mother fights for her life, and then fights to conduct presidential business even in the hospital, Meg struggles with fear for her mother, with anger towards her mother for being a public figure, and with her own tendency to push people away, especially at times of crisis.Like its predecessor, this book is fast-paced. Meg grows a great deal in the course of the book and Ellen Emerson White captures that growth beautifully.White also makes it possible for the reader to step into Meg’s life and imagine that he or she is the daughter of the President of the United States. It’s quite a fantasy for anyone interested in politics on the presidential level.
—Liz
