So Yesterday

by Scott Westerfeld
narrated by Scott Brick

Summary from GoodReads

Ever wonder who was the first kid to keep a wallet on a big chunky chain, or wear way-too-big pants on purpose? What about the mythical first guy who wore his baseball cap backwards? These are the Innovators, the people on the very cusp of cool. Seventeen-year-old Hunter Braque's job is finding them for the retail market.But when a big-money client disappears, Hunter must use all his cool-hunting talents to find her. Along the way he's drawn into a web of brand-name intrigue-a missing cargo of the coolest shoes he's ever seen, ads for products that don't exist, and a shadowy group dedicated to the downfall of consumerism as we know it. 

Thoughts on the Book

I'm a big Scott Westerfeld fan, and this has been on my TBR list for a long time now.  I was super excited to find it at my library in audio book form.  It was perfect for my road trip!

My Review

This book is about a 'cool hunter', Hunter, who works mainly with shoes.  He meets a girl, Jen, who has awesome shoe laces and convinces her to join him in a commercial screening for 'the client'.  The next day the go to meet Hunter's boss who goes missing, which leads them to find the shoes which sets us up for the rest of the book.

I was a bit let down by this book.  I was expecting some awesome Westerfeld story, but instead I got a book about the perfect pair of shoes that are reminiscent of the original Michael Jordan line of Nike's.  Sorry, totally brand dropped there.  At first I was amused by the 'no brand names' stance, but it quickly got annoying, it pulled focus from the story.  Instead of just naming things Hunter would explain the brand instead of naming it, like his phone "from a certain company in Finland", or the aforementioned brand "A certain basketball player (whose name basically became a brand)".  I get the stance on not name dropping, but couldn't he just have said "I was sent a phone to try out" or describe the shoes as from the 80s?  By talking around the name the reader is paying more attention to the brand than they would be if he had said 'a pair of  Air-Jordan's'.  

The story also was exclusively about finding the Nike knock-offs and his relationship with Jen.  Which from beginning to end was only 3 days.  You'd think it was more than that with all the emotional ups and downs of it.

There were parts of the story that had nothing to do with the main plot line, like the purple dye bit?  Totally unnecessary, and really really pointless.  It didn't progress the plot at all and it seemed at odds with what the Jammers were trying to accomplish.  Oh and there was the bit with the reason for all of this is because some girl was pissed that people were switching to in-line skates?  Seriously?  She also pretty much exclusively work the old style 2x2 skates.  How stupid is that?

As for the narrator, Scott Brick was good.  He was nothing special though, but I didn't hate listening to him, it wasn't boring.  But I also did say "wow, now that's an awesome narrator"

I give this book a 7/10.  It held my interest throughout, mostly waiting for something interesting to happen.  It was a big let down though. 

Book Rating: 7/10
Narration Rating: 7/10