Like We Care

November 1, 2004
Adult/High School-Music, television, cigarettes, junk food. In the world of Matthews's bitingly satiric novel, these industries all rely on and take advantage of teenagers for a large proportion of their incomes. High-school senior Todd Noland has grown tired of it and develops a unique idea. Stop buying it. Stop buying the products, the hype, and the peer pressure. All of it. With the aid of fellow senior Joel Karstan, he organizes a protest against the neighborhood convenience store that is effective enough to attract the attention of Annie McCullough. A 20-something executive for R2Rev, a music video cable channel boasting edgy and offensive hosts, she is young enough to appreciate the protest yet savvy enough to help carry it and her career forward. As the media attention builds, the teens set their sights on a new cause-electing their history teacher to a seat on the town council. Dark humor and sharp language reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (Hyperion, 1996), alongside informed satire, bring a funny and often real vision to the pages. But it is the sense of empowerment that readers feel in Todd's and Joel's actions that makes this book thrilling and worthwhile.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2004
Matthews, a seasoned journalist and screenwriter, examines pop culture with a satirical, irreverent eye in this hilarious debut novel. MTV and VH-1 are out, and in their place is R2Rev (short for "Rap, Rock, Revolution")--a cable station that's taking disrespectful, vulgar teenagers to even greater heights of fame. Annie, a glorified production assistant with a VP title, has been relegated to baby sitting R2Rev's star VJ on the road, even though the network brass have Annie to thank for much of the young network's success. She hopes to really show her stuff when she lands in a small Illinois town where the star high-school athlete, Joel Kasten, has started a revolution of his own by boycotting corporate products aimed at teenagers--cigarettes, chips, sugary sodas, candy. Such an impassioned move is completely out of his cool character, but Joel likes how his legions of followers do as he does. Without a scintilla of sentimentality, Matthews shows that despite teenagers' general apathy--and the corporate world's exploitation of the same--there remains a shimmer of hope that young people can muddle through and make a difference.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)