oh the shoes!

So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: mystery, YA

Review: Why did it have to be about shoes? Really, the whole shoe thing is just not one I ever understood (not that I understand much about trends and fashion). But this is a great book that creates an interesting (and probably fairly accurate) scenario about how trends get started, how they spread, and why they seem to come and go so quickly.

But what if there's a group that's trying to undo the work of all the marketers and trendsetters (these would clearly be my people)? Are they the anti-cool? What if they themselves somehow become cool? This is the premise of Westerfeld's book. When Hunter (a Trendsetter) discovers the ultimate shoes in an abandoned building in Chinatown, he's determined to find out where they come from and whether they have anything to do with his boss's disappearance (her phone was found in the same building, but nobody seems to know where she is). What he learns about the "cool pyramid" and it's relationship to revolutionary France makes him re-evaluate his own status as a Trendsetter. It also gave me a lot of food for thought on the subject.