So Yesterday

by Scott Westerfeld

Chances are, the teen in your life knows Scott Westerfeld from his Uglies series. In this novel, the author explores what makes trends hot among teens. Seventeen-year-old narrator Hunter Braque spots trends for a highly successful shoe company, and participates in focus groups. Part of what makes this book so smart is the way Westerfeld approaches the topic so that it can never be dated. Here’s Hunter’s reasoning about why he’s asked a girl on the streets of New York if he can take a picture of her shoelaces: “That week skate meant “cool,” like dope or rad once did. And this girl’s laces were cool. Fuzzy and red, they looped through the middle eyelet repeatedly on one side, speading out in a fan on the other. Kind of like the old rising-sun Japanese flag, but sideways.” The shoe-lace wearing girl is the Innovator to Hunter’s Trendsetter. Jen and Hunter meet at the start of chapter one, and when he takes her to a “tasting” (focus group), Jen’s “original thinking” sets a chain of events in motion. What follows is part love story, part mystery, and part scathing satire of a consumer-driven society. Guaranteed to get your teen thinking about who really influences cultural tastes.