Oh Man! Am I a Laggard?

I guess I kind of am, since I still have some combat boots that I wore in high school and I'm late on the bandwagon with this whole Scott Westerfeld thing.

There is a story here -- let me break it down for you.

About a year and a half ago, I get sent a book to review. It's called Uglies and features a killer concept -- a future society where plastic surgery is mandatory at age 16. Cool, huh?

Unfortunately, most of the book deals with a wilderness trek and a society of those who refuse the surgery called Smokies. Ugh. I didn't like it. I didn't hate it, but I can't say that I was excited about the promised trilogy or the writer, one Scott Westerfeld.

So, when weeding the shelves a few months later, I come across another book by Mr. Westerfeld, So Yesterday, I can't say that I was all hyped up to read it.

You can guess what happened next, right? Peeps, one of the best vampire books I've read in a long time. So good, it made me want to take another look at So Yesterday.

(Editor's Note: Normally, this is where I would post an image of the book. But Blogger.com won't cooperate, so just click the link above O.K.?)

And man, am I glad I did. So Yesterday is the story of Hunter, a Trendsetter on the second level of the cool pyramid. Above him are the Innovators, those who create cool. Like the first person to wear his baseball cap backwards or put her wallet on a chunky chain. Below him are the Early Adopters -- people who always have the latest, newest stuff (and wind up with a closet full of N-Gages and Betamaxes). Then there are the Consumers -- where most of us sit, those who see cool on the pages of a magazine or a commercial and go out and buy it. At the bottom of the pyramid are the Laggards -- those dudes with their tucked-in KISS t-shirts and mullets who accidentally become cool about once every twenty years or so.

Aside from being a Trendsetter himself, Hunter is a Cool Hunter. He wanders around NYC looking for the new, the unusual, the hip -- so he can bring it to the attention of the large corporations he works for, and they can incorporate it to their marketing, product designs and whatnot. He makes good money doing it too -- until he meets Jen, an Innovator, and gets sucked into a kidnapped-fueled, purple-dyed plot orchestrated by the Jammers.

Who are the Jammers? To find out, you'll have to read! But don't worry, this is a funny, thought-provoking, romantic trip through the ultra-cool world of NYC.

And for the record, combat boots never go out of style.