So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld

Published in 2004.
Audiobook read by Scott Brick.


Scott Westerfeld, author of the Uglies series, is a brilliant social commentator! On his website, he describes So Yesterday this way:

What if it was your job to say what was cool? What if clothes and electronics companies gave you cash for your opinion, and lots of free stuff on top of it? You wouldn't complain about that, would you?

Hunter Braque is a professional cool-hunter. No ads go on TV without his approval, no new shoes hit the stores unless he's down with them. It's a pretty sweet deal, until he meets Jen—a rare Innovator, one of the people who actually creates cool at street-level. Real cool, not the corporate kind. Suddenly, strange things start to happen.

First Hunter's boss Mandy disappears. When he enlists Jen to help find her, the two begin to uncover a plot to end consumerism as we know it! Will the world change forever, or can Hunter save the sacred bond between brands and buyers? Does he even want to?

I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this unique book more than the last third, but overall I found it to be a fun, satirical look at who decides what is cool.

Westerfeld's wife, author Justine Larbalestier, called So Yesterday "a love letter to New York City" in a blog post about the book. I particularly enjoyed the shout out to Becky Hammond of the WNBA (even though she's no longer with New York). There is a cool photoblog of So Yesterday celebrating New York City on Westerfeld's blog.

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