So Yesterday

The young adult thriller So Yesterday (2004) by American author Scott Westerfeld follows seventeen-year-old Hunter Braque as he figures out the meaning of “cool” in New York City. The novel was praised for its fast-paced plot and on-point dialogue. Westerfeld was inspired to write it after being laid off from a marketing company. Its themes include youth marketing, authenticity, autonomy, and love.

Hunter’s job as a “cool hunter” is to walk around and spot what will be cool in the near future. He then submits his research to various companies that aim to capitalize on upcoming trends. He divides people into his cool pyramid. From best to worst, there are innovators, trendsetters, early adopters, consumers, and laggards. Hunter is considered a trendsetter—whatever he selects becomes the next “it” thing—and is hired by a famous shoe company to sit in on focus groups and give the thumbs up or down as to which products are actually cool. Once he submits something, it only takes a week or two for everyone in the country to talk about it.

Hunter and his family first moved to the city from Minnesota when he was fourteen. Not knowing anyone, he avoided loneliness by starting a blog. He spotted and examined the small ways that people communicated large messages about themselves through their choice of music, hair, clothes, and speech, especially slang.



So Yesterday opens to Hunter asking Jen James, an innovator, if he can take a photo of her shoes. He’s drawn to her sense of style, particularly her innovative way of tying her shoelaces. Her cute smile certainly doesn’t hurt anything. He instantly includes her shoelaces in his cool pyramid, which his boss, Mandy, sends to “the client” (the corporation is never revealed in So Yesterday, but it’s presumably Nike). Hunter is so impressed by Jen that he invites her to review a shoe commercial with him and Mandy. Her observations are trenchant and useful, and Mandy offers her a job on the spot.

The next day, Mandy tells them to come to her office in Chinatown for a brainstorming session. When they get there, Mandy is nowhere to be found, and the building appears abandoned. Jen and Hunter have to break into the building. Inside, they find Mandy’s phone in a box that happens to contain “the coolest shoes we’d ever seen.” That the shoes are branded with an anti-Nike logo doesn’t seem to matter. While talking about their amazingly cool find, a huge bald man comes out of nowhere, yelling at Jen and Hunter to return his property. Understandably, they run away (with the shoes) and escape on a roof. But Hunter loses his phone, an error that will come back to haunt him.

Hunter and Jen collect any and all hints as to their boss’s whereabouts. This includes seeking out the help of a teenage IT expert who can pixelate the last image on Mandy’s phone, which is very blurry. Unexpectedly, Mandy’s phone rings. Hunter picks up to hear who they believe is the bald man. In a sinister voice, he promises to find Hunter. Hunter wonders if he should go into hiding, but Jen—a brave, plucky risk-taker—tells him to find the guy before he finds Hunter.



Hunter starts to notice people following him, who they dub the Bald Man, NASCAR Man, and Futura Garamond. Through various warning signs, Hunter learns that Mandy’s kidnappers may be a radical anticonsumerism group. They don’t want the cool shoes in Mandy’s possession to ever be marketed to the general public.

Hunter and Jen seek help from fellow “cool hunter” Hillary Winston-Smith (whom Hunter calls Hillary Hyphen). She tells them that she heard the Bald Man was actually the innovator of those shoes and was presenting them to Mandy. He chased them in Chinatown simply because he wanted his shoes back.

Through these adventures with Jen, Hunter is increasingly enamored with the possibility of not relying on fashion labels to feel cool. He admires Jen’s self-realization and the products she creates. She seems to be a label in and of herself. She really is cool, unlike the majority of people who wait until major corporations tell them what to wear or how to style their hair.



Later, they run into Mandy. It turns out she was never kidnapped but was away on business. She tells them that though the shoes are admittedly awesome, they could never be mass-produced and thus will remain one of a kind. Jen and Hunter return the shoes to the Bald Man.

The novel concludes with Jen and Hunter officially dating. Hunter continues pondering the role of innovation in America, from Annie Edson Taylor (the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel) to the Mexico City Olympics (the first crowd ever to do the wave). He wonders whether he should continue researching for companies like “Nike” or try making his own unique products and moments.