So Yesterday
Grade 7-10–New York City is the backdrop for this trendy, often surreal novel with a message about the down-and-dirty business of inventing and marketing pop-cultural fads. Hunter Braque, 17, is part of a focus group that views advertisements for shoes. A product gets the nod if it is "skate," but it is more important to point out what might be "uncool." When the teen brings Jen to the next meeting, she spots uncool right away and lets Hunter's boss, Mandy, know. The next day, the woman tells Hunter that the client appreciated Jen's original thinking, and that their help is needed for a "big deal." Jen and Hunter quickly find themselves caught up in a strange turn of events when Mandy disappears. Their search for her begins in an abandoned building in Chinatown and leads to a wild, drunken party at the Museum of Natural History where people are viewing advertisements for a new shampoo. This is a somewhat entertaining story, but awkward phrasing throughout defeats the "coolness," and the scenes involving Hunter's epidemiologist dad slow down the plot. Readers will better appreciate the satire and humor about the consumer world in M. T. Anderson'sFeed(Candlewick, 2002), in which the characters are far more realistic.–Kelly Czarnecki, Bloomington Public Library, ILCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.