So Fetch: The Making of ‘Mean Girls’ (and Why We’re Still So Obsessed with It)

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. Dey Street, $29.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-327616-1

“Get in, loser. We’re going back to 2004,” writes entertainment journalist Armstrong (When Women Invented Television) in this fun look at the making and legacy of the high school comedy Mean Girls. She describes how Tina Fey, then head writer at Saturday Night Live, was drawn to the “nasty and violent” behavior of the high schoolers described in Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes,a 2002 exposé of “how girls leverage gossip, social pressure, and friendship... to bully others,” and loosely adapted the book for her first screenplay. Plentiful behindthe-scenes anecdotes offer intriguing tidbits about creative paths not taken (star Lindsay Lohan wanted the role of villain Regina George before studio executives got cold feet about the actor playing against type) and highlight the film’s talented ensemble, as when Armstrong describes how Rajiv Surendra, who played “rapping Mathlete Kevin G.,” pushed himself to lean into the raunchiness of his character’s talent show rap. Armstrong also examines how ubiquitous memes quoting the movie have extended its influence, and she details the making of the Broadway musical adaptation. Armstrong’s account of the shooting of Mean Girls emulates the breezy enjoyability of the film while offering thoughtful commentary on how “taking young women’s problems seriously while also being very funny” proved central to the film’s appeal. Fans will be riveted. Agent: Laurie Abkemeier, DeFiore & Co. (Jan.) the financial conglomerates by separating investment banking from commercial banking”—reined in banks’ ability to make risky investments and inaugurated decades of relative stability. However, corporate lobbyists succeeded in rolling back regulations from the 1970s through the end of the century, culminating in the 1998 repeal of Glass-Steagall, which made it easier for banks to push “highly speculative and risky financial products” and precipitated the 2008 financial crisis. Epstein outlines an ambitious slate of reforms, including the establishment of public banks, which he suggests will be disincentivized from risky behavior by their notfor-profit status. Other recommendations to “break up the banks by separating investment and securities activities from deposit taking and lending” and rein in private equity by “limiting the use of debt in buyouts” offer a robust plan for regulation, and Epstein’s skill in describing financial matters plainly is a boon. Epstein convinces with this potent plan for ending the era of “too big to fail.” (Jan.)