Published by HMH Books for Young Readers May 5, 2015
336 Pages
Source: Library
Bookologists Analysis: Eco friendly book meets scifi meets good old YA.
In Marla Klein and Ivy Wilde’s world, teens are the gatekeepers of culture. A top fashion label employs sixteen-year-old Marla to dictate hot new clothing trends, while Ivy, a teen pop star, popularizes the garments that Marla approves. Both girls are pawns in a calculated but seductive system of corporate control, and both begin to question their world’s aggressive levels of consumption. Will their new “eco-chic” trend subversively resist and overturn the industry that controls every part of their lives?
Smart, provocative, and entertaining, this thrilling page-turner for teens questions the cult like mentality of fame and fashion. Are you in or are you out?
The garment industry’s environmental impact is not
given a lot of attention or thought about, especially in the YA sphere let
alone big issues in YA like global warming or fair working conditions. The draw
for me to Material Girls is the tackling of the issue of the garment industry
in its career paths, materialism, and waste. However I didn't fully realize
that the clothing industry was pivotal till the end of the book which made the
book that much more accessible. The issues were also very clear in the extreme
of a materialistic quasi scifi world of Material Girls.
A fabulous thing about Material Girls is that it
is a summer read-- very light and quick while still having a wonderful female
centric character group. For a YA novel to be so light in the romance area it
was refreshing and a reminder of how determined the heroines in the genre are.
The character development was easy to follow as the book unraveled into
differing opinions on environmental issues. Without being in first person the
decisions and reasoning made in each narrator was remarkably clear. My one issue
with the book was the worldbuilding. Some of the terms and technology were very
hard to comprehend due to the lack of explanation. It took quite a time for me
to understand the Tap (when children are chosen to be in the creative field or
not). The family dynamic was also hard to pick up on as the looseness of the
familial unit.
Material Girl raises questions about our habits
in clothing and fair trade which is nicely supplemented with resources in the
back of the book. The conflict between the pop star and fashion designer was
simple and clean with the needed plot though it was a bit hard to appreciate
without the setting well placed. An overall rounded read that comes to a
satisfying conclusion that leaves a topic to ponder.
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