review 1: "Mean Girls" meets "Wall Street" in this innovative look at teen popularity and cyberbullying.Kate is an average teen girl, not overly concerned with her looks or popularity, until she discovers that she has been ranked 71 out of the 140 girls in her senior class on a website called "The Market". Patterned after the NYSE, The Market enables participants to buy "stock" in individual girls, based on their "looks-to-brains" ratio and other criteria. When Kate's two best friends determine to "reinvent her brand" with an aggressive marketing plan (i.e. makeover) her stock zooms from "junk bond" to "blue chip. But who exactly is behind The Market, and what will participating cost Kate and her friends in terms of trust and self-respect? A great parent/daughter read, asking pointe... mored questions about the illusory nature of popularity, image and exclusion. review 2: 'The Market' has to be one of J.M. Steele best books. At 336 pages, this young-adult book was actually a really quick read. Centered around high school senior Kate Winthrop, this novel tells the tale of high school popularity on steroids. When Kate accidentally comes across her school's "social stock market" and realized that she's ranked 71 out of 140 girls in the senior class (a junk bond), she sets out to rise through the ranks and become a blue-chip stock with her too best friend Dev and Callie. When she soon finds herself ranked 2/140, second only to the most popular girl in the school-Gretchen Tanner-things begin to go horribly wrong. I really enjoyed reading 'The Market'. It was a crazy take on the everyday trails of high school popularity. I couldn't stop reading! less
