Shop till you drop
In my mind, I promised to get this posted before the week was out.
This is the hardcover version which, while perhaps underwhelming, reflects the theme of the book better than the paperback version, which is more generic. I was surprised to see that this is published in part by Disney; does this mean we can expect to see a made-for-TV movie starring Selena Gomez soon? Well, I don't know about that.
Kate has never been one of the popular people at Millbank High, and for the most part she's content. But after a run-in with the head Mean Girl, Gretchen, and checking out the Millbank Social Stock Market's website (where she's ranked a depressing 71), Kate wants to turn things around. She recruits her two friends, fashionista Callie and geeky Dev - the latter of whom gets a bit too excited about the idea of Kate breaking into the Proud Crowd. Kate herself is more eager to impress Will B., lead singer of the local rock band and all-around hottie. As she's busy changing her entire look and trying to become pals with Gretchen, her mother is dead-set on getting the family to join the snobby county club. Soon, Kate's rank is rising, but she's also ditching her friends, neglecting her homework, and breaking the heart of the soulful Jack, the beta to Will's alpha. She's obsessed with becoming #1 before graduation, even as she's starting to suspect that Gretchen might be up to something - and Will might be involved.
At first, this novel appears to be your run-of-the-mill makeover story a la Mean Girls and She's All That, but with a smarter angle. Along with the obsession with popularity storyline, we get a crash course in the workings of the stock market - where social standing replaces monetary value. Kate is an average herione who, for the first part, is there to serve the story more than the other way around, but she offers some interesting insights on the themes of greed and superficiality. She has a shaky relationship with her mother that isn't fleshed out very well, and their separate plotlines have obvious similarities. The actions of Dev - initially the driving force behind the mission to turn Kate into the stylish "Kat" - come off as confusing and somewhat irritating. I was surprised at how the subplot with Will turned out - we see how he's different from the Proud Crowd and his own issues with them (not to mention with his family). The book packs an emotional punch toward the end, when Kate finds out about what's really going on. The way her relationships with various characters change and/or take on new meanings is surprisingly real and moving. This book, much like Dev's theory about girl who begins high school as a loser and ends up a Queen Bee, is quite the Latebloomer. More than that, I was intrigued at the comparison made in the book about how Kate and Gretchen's relationship resembles a romantic relationship. I wish this point had been pushed more, because it is somewhat true the way girls act around each other. After all, the book begins and ends with a scene with Kate and Gretchen. I was impressed with how their relationship takes an unexpected turn close to the end, but it's so close that an impatient reader wouldn't have stuck with it. There were times when I dreaded picking this book back up. Rating: 3.5 Blue Chips out of 5.