Kat with a K

Review: Jennifer Government

Jennifer Government by Max Barry
Genre: Sci fi
Pages: 321
Rating: 3.5

This was a selection for the sci fi/fantasy book club I attend. I had heard good things about this book from so many different people, and I ended up being very disappointed by it. It's a book with a message, but the message is so obvious that it ends up being boring. Basically, you can tell what the message is from reading the back cover copy. And then you read the book, and nothing that happens changes that initial impression at all. It was utterly unsurprising, and could have been easily summarized in half a page or, at most, a short story.

That said, I didn't hate it. I enjoyed the writing style, and actually cared about a few of the characters. (Some of them were just annoying.) And it's clever, in a gimmicky sort of way. It just went on way too long for a gimmick without much substance (other than "corporations and big government are bad"). I might try another of Barry's books, since I did enjoy the writing. But this one left me severely underwhelmed.