So Yesterday

by Scott Westerfeld

Ever wonder who decides what's cool and what's not? Hunter Braque is one of those people. Hunter is a Trendsetter, the second level of the "cool pyramid." Then, one day when he's out cool-hunting, he comes across an Innovator by the name of Jen. Innovators are the top of the cool pyramid, the ones who have the original ideas. They're the ones who are the first to do something new, like tie their shoelaces in a new pattern, or wear clothes too big on purpose.
Trendsetters go around looking for Innovators so that they can sell the ideas to advertisers. Jen's latest Innovation is to tie her shoelaces in a rising-sun pattern, and Hunter spots it and sends it to his boss, Mandy. While talking to Jen, Hunter gets a call from Mandy to go to a focus group for reviewing an advertisement. Hunter invites Jen along, and she startles everyone there by making an observation that nobody had made before. This couldn't be good, since Mandy wasn't happy. But as it turns out, businesses like original thinking. They are looking for new ideas and original concepts so as not to reuse the old ones over and over again.

Shortly afterward, Mandy invites the two of them to a meeting. She had something to show them, a new level of cool. But she never turns up for the meeting, and Hunter and Jen find Mandy's phone in a nearby abandoned building. Suspecting that Mandy has been kidnapped, they embark on a crazy mission to find her and rescue her. As it all turns out, things aren't what they seemed to be...

I really, really enjoyed this book. Westerfeld's creative use of capital letters to indicate importance or emphasis (i.e., Innovators, Trendsetters; at a computer-geek's house, dust and sunlight were Very Bad Things and Bad Things, respectively) is very clever and gives voice to the story. The characters come to life, with an excellent balance of action and slump, along with a dash of romance to keep things interesting. This story, though it may be small, has a little bit of everything I look for in a book. Action, character interaction, espionage, humour, seat-of-the-pants decisions... the list goes on, but it's all there. Kudos to Westerfeld, and this book gets a great recommendation!