An unsuccessful painter who has spent years holed up in her studio, Ursula Van Urden hardly knows what trends are. But in the wake of her fashion model sister Ivy's widely publicized suicide attempt, Ursula is willing to do anything to better understand Ivy's breakdown-and that includes taking a job with Ivy's mysterious boyfriend Chas, who runs one of Middle City's most successful trendspotting firms, Tomorrow, Ltd. When Ursula stumbles upon a young woman who lives under a bench, seems to have lost her ability to speak, wears hide clothing that she sews, and eats pigeons, Chas is spellbound: This girl has begun her own trend. She is an urban savage. She is the future.

While on the job, Ursula rollerblades behind Chas' protegé, Javier. As they weave through the crowds on the streets of Middle City, she listens to Javier's observations about the Light Age-his own version of Utopia, in which people will be able to customize their beliefs, rituals, tribes and personal mythologies from a vast array of choices-hypnotized by his nimble theories. And when she isn't working, Ursula visits her sister, who remains delusional-convinced that she has been kidnapped by a cabal of evil businessmen from the future. When Ursula begins to find bits of Ivy's delusions fitting into her own learning about marketing strategy, she is left to discern what is true and what is imagined, hoping to find a way to save Ivy with the answers.

In her first formal training session, Ursula learns the power of paradessence, the paradoxical essence of a product that allows it to satisfy opposing desires at one time and therefore appeal to everyone. THE SAVAGE GIRL is, in a way, a study in paradessence. Both a shimmering love story and a dark reflection on the modern world, it is a novel of self-discovery and a study of self-destruction.


Hated this book - it should have been minus 1 but I couldn't do it. Never finished it.