IA Reads

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

A Sense of the Infinite by Hilary T. Smith book review by Nicole

Annabeth is entering her senior year of high school with her best friend Noe and is looking forward to the entire experience of what is to come. With her head stuck in the future, all she can think about is going to college with Noe, her Paris plans, and following her best friend to the ends of the earth. To her dismay, nothing goes right; she gets pregnant, her mother tells her that her father raped her, Noe is recruited for a gymnastics team at a completely different college, and their friendship starts to fall apart. This is the story of broken relationships and change; from the point of view from a girl who’s life is falling apart, Smith tells the story of recovery.


This story feels like an emotional diary from a broken girl who desperately needs help. From how Smith set up the novel, the reader gets a full novel with the experiences and reactions both emotional and physical from Annabeth. This intricate yet simplistic set-up of the novel from both the character backstories to how the chapters set up adds to the overall mood of sadness to recovery of this book. I was able to feel connected to the characters despite how different their lives were from mine. Smith beautifully portrayed what it meant to fall apart and start building your life back up again. The path of both Annabeth and Noe follows one of sex and pregnancy that leads to abortion, rape, eating disorders, underage drinking, and bullying so be aware with younger audiences.

Educationally this book can be used to analyze the culture of high school and its impact on teens. As previously mentioned, relations, both mending and breaking, is a reoccurring theme that strives to tell that one’s true family is the closest when you need it and toxic relationships that cause personal harm should always be weeded out, no matter the past relation. Furthermore, this book is perfect for a bookshelf theme in May which is Mental Health Month. It would be such a great experience if students could have a mental health seminar which would provide both resources of how to overcome disorders and novels like this which describe the experiences of a sufferer.

Material Girls by Elaine Dimopoulos book review by Nicole


Author (Last name first): Dimopoulos, Elaine
 Title of the Book: Material Girls
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
 Date of Publication: 2015
 ISBN# 987-0-544-38850-5
Price: $17.99 Hardcover
 Grade Level: YA
 Number of pages: 319
Nicole's Rating (based on VOYA): 5Q4P
Highly Recommended

 In a world where fashion and looks are the only things that seem to matter, Marla is a superior court judge within the famous fashion company, Torro-LeBlanc. Believing she had achieved her wildest dreams, she never expected to be demoted back to the lowest level of the company, a drafter of designs, once she voted against the rest of the court on a fashion item. Humiliated for going with her gut decisions on what “trends” will occur, Marla finds is difficult to initially get back with the designer crowd. At the same time, Ivy Wilde, a pop star icon, is stuck within her “wilde” image of a pop star who couldn't care less about what is considered scandalous. Joined together by the common need for a change, Marla and Ivy rebel against the trendy “Big Five” fashion brands and wilde’s agency. Marla creates a new image for wilde, a wilder, animalistic, earthy new look for the once untameable star. Their goal is to inform people against the crazy trends that create so much waste as each piece of clothing can only be worn once. To reduce the impact of the economy of the environment, they promote wearing clothes multiple times and to even upcycle their clothing once finished. One step after another the once small image rebellion turns into a full scale strike and uprising against the trends. Fighting against public opinion, bosses and managers, and friends the strike is short lived and the message against the unsustainable trends all but dies with it.

This book was a very interesting read for me. I could not put it down yet I hated the ending. Dimopoulos married fashion, dystopian society, politics, and an eco-friendly message while keeping it as realistic as it can get for this dystopian society. Although not as Project Runway as the back cover implies, this new fashion world intrigued me as I was able to peer into the process of creating a garment and was able to understand how each aspect of that process influenced the official design. Regarding the Project Runway aspect, it truly was more of a Project Runway Jr. Fashion Challenge, and a failed one at that. Many of the described designs were insane but given the society, it makes fun of the insanity of the importance placed upon looks. The success of the characters in this book would have been of a lower level designer who did not get eliminated for the challenge yet they were the second to last. That is truly what infuriated me. The ending resulted in a complete reset to the beginning of the book. Ivy turned back into a agency-obeying scandalous pop star who could have had marvelous character development.

The climax of this novel had her completely against her old self and with actual morals. Regarding Marla, her character development was more realistic. She was able to open up her own upcycled clothing shop with some of the other drafters who were released from their jobs after the strikes. All-in-all, although the ending made me upset, I understand why Dimopoulos had it end that way. A main theme was that it takes more work to change something existing than to create something new. Although the strikes failed, the failed strikers were still able to create their own start-up, slowly getting their message to the world rather than forcing immediate change.

In hindsight my emotions towards their success was purposeful. I believe that this helped get the message of reducing clothing waste across more than it would have if it was a successful rebellion. Also, by having Ivy revert to her old self Dimopoulos was able to show to the readers how self centered many pop-culture icons are. This book was a small protest against the attitudes of current society who is self-centered and all about how one looks to others.

 This book has a decent amount of drug use. Called the “Placidophilus pill” or a “P Pill” for short, it causes the user to relax and create a happiness high. Although the drug is illegal, its widespread use represents how this society is not satisfied with how everything is going. The need for this pill demonstrates that the immense pressures of society are too large for everyone to handle and a change was needed. In addition, the entire book is practically child labour. Children get “Tapped” at the end of seventh grade to be asked into a certain field of work. Their entire lives depend on that moment and if not tapped, people get hated jobs such as doctors or teachers. The fact that much of the children want to go into the entertainment industry is another reflection of today’s society yet does not make sense. I wondered how does this society thrive if the majority of the workforce are children and there are not many people to take the necessary place of civil workers?

 With an interesting take on society and how people create waste this book would be perfect for a book club or interdisciplinary studies of economics and society. To fully enjoy this book an already present interest in fashion would be beneficial as the surface plot completely revolves around them.