Meat Market is a Young Adult book. When I read the first couple of pages I felt like a pervert reading this sort of stuff. Not my bag at all.
As I read more I became interested in how this 16 year old let fate drive her into a lucrative modelling career, and how she got on with her friends. I thought that she seemed pretty level headed. At one point when money was mentioned I thought that she would need a money manager to look after her future. The sex with Ferdy was, well, sex, and I wondered if it was necessary to the story.
When she left school to do modelling full time I wondered whether this would be the end of her school friendships. The back cover of the book leads you to think that it will all turn ugly, and so at one juncture it does. The pressure of performing so much in so concentrated a time leads her into drugs and these eventually lead her into addiction, but she is trying to hold on to the strong part of her previous life, Ferdie, while being pushed all over the world, and earning buckets of money. A few times she considers if it is worth it, but the money and the buzz draw her back, until she is sexually affronted by a pervert photographer. She then blows the whistle on him which leads to a court case and justice, with the help of other models, Then the book winds up with all the feel good stuff about woman power and responsible agencies started by one of them, and how they all progress in life.
At the end I enjoyed the book, and it was a glimpse into a different type of life. 7- 8?
Alison & Chris comments:
Meat Market by Juno Dawson.
Here are some opinions from the Ferndown jury (disclaimer-Chris). This is going to be brief, not because there’s little to say but because my typing speed is glacial.
I liked it a lot. It’s a gripping easy read about a big issue that’s especially relevant now, because social media makes things instant and global, but also important at any time because there’s always issues of imbalances of power in relationships.
She uses modern language but the structure of the book is very traditional. There’s a beginning , a middle and an end; there’s one linear time line; it’s a morality tale where the good guys win and the bad guys get punished, and the heroine is a normal likeable girl who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances,struggles but finally triumphs. The result is that she doesn’t let style get in the way of telling a good story.
What an extraordinary world modelling is. Watching the Queen’s funeral I was struck by the starring role and the pressure put on ten-year-old choirboys to lead the musical tribute. I was thinking that there was no other area of endeavour in which someone so young would be trusted to perform at a world class level. But these boys have had years of intensive training to develop their natural talents. They’re also, unless you’re Aled Jones or someone similar, not famous celebrities. Models, according to this book, have no training or preparation.They are gawky teenagers suddenly thrust into an intensely competitive global industry of fashion and advertising with very little in the way of protection or support network apart from their agents.
You’ve all seen me with clothes on so you’ll know that I’m not terribly fashion aware and l normally filter out or ignore adverts on television or in magazines, but this week we’re staying in a holiday cottage that doesn’t have internet television so we’re watching some scheduled programs with adverts and I’ve been struck, after reading the book, by how all women in adverts are so slim and tall looking. Now I can see that McDonalds wouldn’t want an advert in which fat people order a meal, are asked if they want to “go large” and respond enthusiastically, but there must be some way products can be promoted as aspirational without all buyers being portrayed as thin people.
That’s the limit of my typing time. Hope to see you in October.
Score 8.
Chris
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