So Yesterday
So Yesterday is a stand-alone novel by Scott Westerfeld, exploring the science of cool.
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 backward? These are the Innovators, the people at the peak of the cool pyramid.
Seventeen-year-old Hunter Braque is a Trendsetter, on the second level of the pyramid. His job: Find the newest, coolest thing for the retail market. His MO: Observe; don't get involved.
But he has to get involved when he and his crush, Jen, discover the cell phone belonging to his boss in an abandoned building-- and his boss missing. Hunter and Jen are soon snared in a web of brand-name intrigue: a missing cargo of the coolest shoes they've ever seen, ads for products that don't exist, and a shadowy group dedicated to the downfall of consumerism as we know it.
- Action Girl - Arguably Jen. When Hunter hesitates, she dives right in.
- Amateur Sleuth/Kid Detective - Deconstructed. Hunter admits that statistically, no amateur detectives ever solves crime in real life. He and Jen bumble around, averting common detective tropes, and mostly stumble on the truth.
- Enhance Button - Subverted, as Hunter tries to get his friend Lexa (who makes a living off of computer graphics) to help him by zooming in and enhancing a cell phone photo, and she explains that the "enhancing" part is impossible; she then shows that the zoomed-in pixels can be made more comprehensible by blurring them.
- Genre Savvy - Hunter, completely.
- I Know Mortal Kombat - Played completely straight, with Jen's driving skills coming straight from Grand Theft Auto.
- Lemony Narrator - Hunter, again. He has a penchant for Writing Around Trademarks and going off on tangents.
- Meaningful Name - Futura Garamond, typeface designer. Also, the entire book is set in the fonts Futura and Garamond, making his name a Stealth Pun, Brick Joke, and possibly a fourth-wall-breaking Line-of-Sight Name.
- Unusual Chapter Numbers - Chapter 0 and Chapter Whatever
- Writing Around Trademarks - Used throughout the book, lampshaded, and occasionally subverted. Justified by the narrator's job as a "cool hunter" making him rather annoyed by product placement.