Review: Material Girls by Elaine Dimopoulos
SYNOPSIS:
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?
REVIEW:
*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*
This book was interesting, but not in a good a way. In the synopsis, you see the book mentioned as a thrilling page-turner…that is quite a stretch to say the least. And maybe this explains why the book has sat on my shelf for so long before I finally dived into it. The plot is so very slow. It wasn’t thrilling, it wasn’t exciting, and the while the foundation of the story is intriguing, the execution was so poorly done that my initial interest faded fast and I ultimately just ended up pushing myself through the story so I could mark it as complete and start a new book.
I think this story suffered from two fatal flaws, first being the lack of focus. The story jumps into to an unknown world, with no background or heads up. You hear words like ‘Unum’ but no explanation is never given for this device actually is. In addition, there is this weird sort of corporate hierarchy these characters seem to be trapped in but again, you are barely told any information about it, and when you do find out more it’s 2/3 into the story and meager at best. The author does this same with her characters. You really don’t learn a whole lot about the characters backgrounds or morals and this resulted in me feeling no connection to any of these characters. I felt so distant and disconnected from this world and if they author could have streamlined her focus, this might have drastically turned out differently.
Secondly, we have another classic case of misleading synopsis. The synopsis makes it seem that Marla and Ivy form some pact and are desperate to end the corruption taking place in the world. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Marla is bitter about a demotion in the fashion house she works for and things spiral from there. Ivy is one of the most self-absorbed characters I have ever met, till the end of the story she remains in her egotistical ‘me’ mentality bubble. And it is literally the worse. The ending, well I was just happy the story was over but if I am being honest, it was depressing AF. Nothing redeemable happened and nothing changed. Seriously, why did I even read the story when nothing happened after 300 and some odd pages?!
By the time Marla or Ivy show any type of redeemable characteristics, I was over it. And these glimpses of potential were fleeting and far and few in between. Because not only are you trying to figure out these characters and all the secondary characters, you are also trying to shape and piece together this new corrupt world, with literally no information. So while the concept for the story was excellent, the execution was awful.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
