Customer Reviews

The Market

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I got this book for free where I work with teens and started reading it in my free time it definitely was not written for my demographic (early 20s African American Female) however I enjoyed it none the less. It reminded me A LOT of the movie MEAN GIRLS with Lindsey Lohan but of course with a twist. It took me back to my high school days and even elementary and middle school days when I along with my peers obsessed with popularity and all of the pros and cons that came along with it.

The book was a good read and had a pretty good plot and I loved how the story and characters evolved however I thought the ending was a little to happily ever after and not realistic but hey it is a fictional novel geared towards teens.

I would recommend it.

A few months ago I stumbled onto The Taker by J.M. Steele. I loved the book and was thrilled to learn that J.M Steele had another in the works. I wasn't sure how anything could top The Taker, but apparently J.M. Steele had a plan for continued greatness.
Kate Winthrop, a high school senior, knows she may not be the most popular girl in school, but is confident that she is in good social standing. Wrong. Kate is the kind of girl who wears sneakers with jeans -- she's a little rough around the edges. Early in the book, a few well planned turns make Kate face the fact that she is not quite as popular as she had always imagined. She spends the rest of the book climbing the ladder and battling the new struggles of popularity.
So what made this book so great? Well the plot is obviously relatable to everyone. I think everyone has had that moment that said "wait, I'm not as great as i think I am. Ouch." but none of us have had this moment and the subsequent fight for justice so cleverly masterminded as J.M. Steele has for Kate. The characters are likable, but what drives the story is the need to know how The Market will manipulate everyone involved. You just want to be a part of Kate's journey through the last few weeks of high school. Will she taste the sweet nectar of high school A-lister or will she fall on her face in public humiliation? I can't say I wasn't rooting for a bit of both...

So, it's clear I loved this book. You all should probably read it too.

I actually really enjoyed this book. It said Disney on the back, and that kept me from reading it for a few weeks because I like my teen books to have some kind of risk to them, but this book surprised me. I am not a teen but I am a sucker for teen books and movies. If you liked movies like Mean Girls, or any typical woe is me teen story, you will enjoy this book. It is about your average jane type girl who discovers a website that rates all the girls at the school like stock. She is unhappy with her mediocre score and makes drastic changes with the help of her friends to rise above the rest. Throw in the mega hot BMOC and the mega bitchy girl you loved to hate and you got yourself a story. It has a bunch of other side things going on too to break it apart from your typical teen drama. If you wished that you had this kind of life back in high school rather than a boring ho hum 4 years, youll be able to throw yourself into this book and imagine that you were there for 336 pages. Great read if youre the type who likes to have some material in a nice hot bath too.

Kate is a senior high school student about to graduate. When her friends Dev and Callie devise a plan for Kate to become popular and become on top of the "market", an online list of the best girls in school, Kate goes from "nobody" to "somebody".

A delightful and well-known plot, right? Most of the book was decent and an easy read, but the ending was not what I expected. Confusing, unrealistic, and stupid.

If you're bored, you'll have a good time reading this book. But overall, there are much better books.

*parental review*
bad language - 0 - none
sexual content - 2 - the only sexual content is a few kisses, only going to the neck & above, and references to sexy clothing
violence - 1 - kate slaps her "boyfriend". a boy pushes kate into a bookshelve.
adlt content - 0 - none

Kate Winthrop, senior at MIllbank High is far from the It girl on campus, but she doesn't know exactly how far until a mysterious IM directs her to the Millbank Market where she finds she ranks but a measly #71 out of the #140 girls in her senior class. Disappointed, shocked, yet embarrassingly drawn to it, Kate and her two best friends set out to make her blue chip status in the four remaining weeks until graduation.

Armed with a new makeover, new clothes, and a striking new personality, Kate's stock value shoots up, and she's on the road to elite status. With new boy toy Will P. and new BFF Gretchen, it starts to look like her and her friends are going to achieve their goal, but soon enough the game she's playing doesn't seem like a game anymore. It becomes an addiction, and she's not stopping until she reaches the top.

Despite it's cookie-cutter predictability, J.M Steele captivates his audience with a story that touches on the most important aspect of high school: popularity. The feeling of wanting to be on top, the feeling of wanting to be the one that everyone wants to be, and the willingness to do whatever it takes to be #1. He captures the true feelings of a teen girl and the way greed manipulates her. This is definitely an enjoyable book that will change the way you look at the stock market, and just might have you itching to create a market of your own.

From the second Kate gets the secret IM about the market I was hooked! I had to know who was playing her, and who was really her friend in her new found popularity :) I read this in a day...because curiousty kills the cat!

Kate Winthrop is an average teenage girl. She has her two best friends, is four weeks away from graduation, and is perfectly happy with her life as it is. And then, at a party she has no business attending, she overhears someone mockingly call her "Seventy-One." Next thing she knows, she's gotten a mysterious IM with a link to the Millbank Market, a stock-market-esque website that rates the "stock" of each of the 140 girls in Millbank's graduating class. Kate is #71.

At first, Kate is crushed to discover that she's not even in the top 70. But then, she and her friends concoct a plan: they'll invest in her stock, and then give her a makeover so that her "value" shoots up--and then they'll make a killing.

It's a great idea--at first. But as the social experiment progresses, Kate and her friends get so wrapped up in it that they begin to forget the things that are really important. Will becoming a hot commodity make Kate forget all the things she really cares about?

The concept is so much fun. It's a great and silly idea, and with the right execution, this could have been a great book.

Unfortunately, the writing is terrible. The voice is cheesy and over-the-top. Kate, and all of her friends--all of the characters--are cliches. The plot is so predictable that I could cheerfully have bet my life savings on the direction it would take and not had to worry. The parts of the book which actually could have been interesting are introduced as a plot point and then completely ignored. There were a hundred ways to make this novel meaningful, interesting, powerful and entertaining all at once--and instead, JM Steele chose to make it a predictable, shallow cliche.

This book is a definite sell.

I am an adult who enjoys the wonderful selection offered to teens now.

I picked up this book thinking the premise was a little silly, but the authors managed to turn this superficial story into a coming of age, mature and interesting story.

I enjoyed all the characters in this book with the possible exception of the Tanner girls....they are too typical and over the top, but all the other characters, especially our main character and her best friends are wonderfully drawn and interestingly portrayed. Yes, there is a morale here and its worth reading.