Product Description

A gripping, topical novel about branding, code breaking, insidious marketing and strangely powerful toys from the acclaimed young writer Scarlett Thomas. Everyone loves working at PopCo. It's a very young, very cool company with no dress code, no rules and no set working hours. If you work at PopCo you're just as likely to pull all-nighters making prototypes as you are to suddenly decamp en masse to Prague for a week of trend-spotting or fact finding. It's that sort of place. Alice is the exception. She likes working for PopCo, but she doesn't love it. She's good at her job though. She's inherited a love of puzzles from her grandfather who was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the war, and is quietly becoming the star of PopCo's 'Ideation' team. Now Alice has been called down to a mysterious 'thought camp' in Devon with the rest of the team. They're brainstorming over the toy market for teenage girls. Boys have plenty of crazes from Pokemon cards to videogames, but no one has come up with a killer brand for teenage girls. PopCo want to be first and Alice thinks she's cracked it, but suddenly she's not that sure she wants to unleash her idea on the world. Could it have another application? And how sinister is marketing to children anyway? PopCo is a compelling story of rivalry, secrecy, big business and branding, an eye-opening work of fiction by a smart, edgy young writer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85486 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
Praise for PopCo: 'Hugely ingenious ... Mind-stretching fun' Boyd Tonkin, Independent Praise for Going Out: 'GOING OUT takes the most important human preoccupations and fashions a dazzling entertainment out of them. It is beautifully controlled, incredibly disciplined, and points the way to a new future for English fiction. Fans of Coupland and Murakami: here is your new favourite author.' Matt Thorne 'Original, funny and full of insight. Scarlett Thomas's voice is pitch-perfect and she has created a brilliant and assured novel with themes that resonate long after the book has been put down.' Chrissie Glazebrook, author of THE MADOLESCENTS

Time Out
'Clever, likeable, frothy, zeitgeist-chasing - fans of Doug Coupland should find much to enjoy here.'

The Guardian
'Thomas captures the mind-set of brand-savvy but insecure professionals...her writing is sharp and energetic'

Customer Reviews

PopCo
Before reading PopCo, I was getting frustrated with the lack of books suitable to my tastes. I had read all of Haruki Murakami's books and wanted something similarly intelligent and thought provoking. Scarlett Thomas restored my faith in the female writer with this book. This book is a great read for a female reader who is sick of chick-lit and doesn't know what to go for next. Despite the girlie cover of the latest edition, this book is intelligent and witty. It is not chick-lit, but an amazing, compelling novel that stopped me from doing anything until I had finished reading it. The story appeals to the young, leftish person wondering why they are doing what they are doing in life (and anyone older who considers themself trendy but morally conscious). The excellent thing about the book is the author's ability to create characters and intertwining storylines that leave you wanting more. Once you've read this book you will begin your quest to track down the writers others.

Wow
this book really wasn't what I was expecting at all (especially from the cover) Smart, funny, well observed, great ending. I can't really praise it highly enough.
I learnt a lot about cryptanalysis and maths. Usually I'd say that any book that had too much of a maths element would put me into a coma, but this was great.
I really enjoyed the sections of the book that involved Alice when she was at school. It certainally brought back some painful memories for me! Brilliantly observed.
The passages about how we make judgements about people based on their DVD collections was also thought provoking!
Highly recommended, especially if you are going through a stage of duff books...this will get you back on track.

Interesting and well written but heavy handed
The code-breaking information was fascinating and the beginning of the book gripped me almost instantly. Scarlett Thomas writes in a way that I feel she is expressing things I've thought about, but never contemplated writing.

Ultimately though I found long stretches of the book where I felt I was being condescended to and preached at: Despite having been a strict vegetarian (on-off vegan) and immersed in that kind of literature for two decades I felt the pieces about the negative impacts of factory farming and the milk industry were too heavy handed and almost propaganda-like. There are some similar stretches about beauty, identity and fashion which were also patronising.

Unlike some of the other reviewers who were wowed by the ending, I left the book wondering if I had missed a chapter. To me, the ending felt rushed and a little forced (Thomas even seems to hint at this with her protagonist writing a book which she is unsure how to finish), almost like stories I used to write at school for English homework, thinking "I'm bored of this now, how can I get to my planned end piece?"

Despite my comments above (and below) I do recommend this read, although I preferred "The end of Mr Y". I might be a little more wary of her other books, I'm not fond of being preached to and I think thomas needs to be careful of preaching to the converted.

--Please don't read this part of the review if you haven't read the book in its entirety--
Whilst reading this book, I couldn't help harbouring a sense of doom wondering what sinister reason there could be that the NoCo members were coincidentally the same people that PopCo chooses as its elite marketing crack team. Thinking that 'they are the smartest' wasn't a reasonable explanation I was convinced the board had laid a trap or that there was something deeper going on. It x just the way the story went and I felt that it was maybe a tad implausible, which was a shame because the rest of the novel was much more credible.