Allusion City

I started So Yesterday thinking about Bellwether, I ended it thinking of the films of Baz Luhrman. Feed by M.T Anderson was also in there, but this is a far less cynical vision, which I actually rather appreciate. Not that Feed isn't incredible. But then, so is "Moulin Rouge."

(And for yet one more allusion, I am now reminding myself of the review of Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword, which said that any book which reminded you of so many others had to be a true original.)

I'm not sure I entirely grok So Yesterday yet, which is going to make it extremely difficult to review. I think it's about appreciating authenticity over artificiality--with the understanding that something artificial can still be authentic. (As George Selden wrote in The Genie of Sutton Place, you can love a fake, it just has to be real.) About choosing creation over exploitation. About silmultaneously despising and loving consumer culture. Maybe.

(I'm in good company: Deborah Stevenson described the book as having "shimmering ambiguity.")