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A review by andintothetrees
Popco by Scarlett Thomas
4.0
Choosing a star rating for this book was difficult for me, because there were aspects of PopCo I loved so much that I thought the book might make it into my “instant favourites” list; yet I was very disappointed by the ending and had a massive issue with one particular “message” contained within the novel. For overall enjoyment it still scores well though, hence the four stars.
I was a little daunted by PopCo‘s length (the paperback edition is a little over 500 pages) but I still got through it in less than a week, largely because Scarlett Thomas is a most excellent writer who paints her settings and scenes in a refreshingly offbeat manner (in fact, for the first time in ages I’m bustin’ out the stylistically superior tag)*. It follows Alice Butler, a woman in her late 20s who works as an “ideas person” for a toy company (the eponymous PopCo), coming up with new products to sell to children. She, along with several colleagues, is summoned to south west England to work on a top-secret new product, but whilst there increasingly questions the morals of marketing and consumerism in general. Alice also receives several coded messages and at the heart of the book lies the mystery of who is sending these, and why. As the new product PopCo’s team are designing is for teenage girls Alice is inspired to contemplate her own late childhood/early teenage years, during which she was raised by her grandparents (veteran WWII codebreakers – there is a lot about cryptanalysis and maths within PopCo, but don’t let that put you off: I don’t have a mathematical mind at all but was actually quite interested by what was written about it here) after the death of her mother and the disappearance/abandonment of her father. A good chunk of the book is given over to these reflections, which were my favourite – I sometimes wanted the present day sections to hurry up so that I could get back to reading about Alice’s past.
* Here’s a quote from the opening page: “For the first time in weeks I am wearing proper shoes, and I can actually hear my footsteps as I walk, a D major scale on concrete. If you ever plan to hang around train stations in the middle of the night, you should always make sure you can hear your own footsteps, and, if you are at all musical, you should try to work out which notes you make as you walk, as it stops you from being lonely, not that I ever get lonely.”
Read my full review here, on my book blog.
I was a little daunted by PopCo‘s length (the paperback edition is a little over 500 pages) but I still got through it in less than a week, largely because Scarlett Thomas is a most excellent writer who paints her settings and scenes in a refreshingly offbeat manner (in fact, for the first time in ages I’m bustin’ out the stylistically superior tag)*. It follows Alice Butler, a woman in her late 20s who works as an “ideas person” for a toy company (the eponymous PopCo), coming up with new products to sell to children. She, along with several colleagues, is summoned to south west England to work on a top-secret new product, but whilst there increasingly questions the morals of marketing and consumerism in general. Alice also receives several coded messages and at the heart of the book lies the mystery of who is sending these, and why. As the new product PopCo’s team are designing is for teenage girls Alice is inspired to contemplate her own late childhood/early teenage years, during which she was raised by her grandparents (veteran WWII codebreakers – there is a lot about cryptanalysis and maths within PopCo, but don’t let that put you off: I don’t have a mathematical mind at all but was actually quite interested by what was written about it here) after the death of her mother and the disappearance/abandonment of her father. A good chunk of the book is given over to these reflections, which were my favourite – I sometimes wanted the present day sections to hurry up so that I could get back to reading about Alice’s past.
* Here’s a quote from the opening page: “For the first time in weeks I am wearing proper shoes, and I can actually hear my footsteps as I walk, a D major scale on concrete. If you ever plan to hang around train stations in the middle of the night, you should always make sure you can hear your own footsteps, and, if you are at all musical, you should try to work out which notes you make as you walk, as it stops you from being lonely, not that I ever get lonely.”
Read my full review here, on my book blog.