Jennifer Government: The Overly Ponderous Review.

[quietprofanity]

So, like ... I had this big plan to write this humorous, awesome abridged Yu-Gi-Oh-like dissection of Jennifer Government with character dialog and stuff but I realized there was a problem with that ... the first 50 pages or so of JG are actually good. And if I were to come in and point out the flaws and try to rope you in making fun of a part where there aren't any ... that would make me seem lame, and also lull you into a false sense of security where you believe this book to be better than it actually is. And my Primal Rage reference wasn't as funny as it seemed in my head. So I decided to just do a traditional review.

Here are the things I like about Jennifer Government. I like the main heroine and I like the world. The heroine is a WOMAN WITH A MISSION who is stoic and hard-headed but also has a heart and actually has to work for her victories. Other than the fact that she's named after Barry's wife, there's little Mary Sue-ism here. And the world is basically an Adbusters fever nightmare. Corporations rule everything to the point where everyone's last name is the company they work for (or, if they're a child, the school they go to, because schools are paid for by corporations). There's no tax and the government and police are privatized. This begs the question of who the hell takes care of other pieces of infrastructure like the sewers (the book mentions "premium" roads with expensive tolls, but doesn't say where they go to). But in a humorous satire that wouldn't be important. If it remained as good, humorous satire.

And for the first 50 pages the book is good, humorous satire. The initial concept, little corporate weasel from Nike is asked by his employers to kill kids to give their newest line of shoes street cred is the stuff of a good black comedy. And when he goes to the Police and they say, "Well, it's in the contract you signed, but you can also subcontract to us," it's still funny. Then somebody actually dies -- still can be funny, especially since the character was meant to be a shallow, braindead 14-year-old, and the fact that her parents agree to sell their house so the Government, specifically the heroine Jennifer Government, can have the money to track down little corporate weasel's employers, it IS funny.

And then Barry decides one character should feel suicidal remorse over the 14-year-old's death and another one should fend off a rape attempt. Uh ... wow. I will at least give him credit for not trying to make the second one funny, but then for the rest of the book the attempted rape victim is portrayed as Bitchy Corporate Ballbuster and has her kidnap a child. So I was in a rather strange position where I wanted to feel bad for Violet, despite the fact that the book was pegging her as evil.

Now, some might say to me, "But Rebecca, attempted rape victims can still be jerks. It's character depth." Well, kind of ... maybe ... the thing is Barry isn't good at this character depth thing.

I'm going to talk a little more about the structure of the book, but I promise it's related. The book kind of wants to be a movie script. The characters and background have very few descriptions unless there's an elaborate fight scene going on and most of the chapters are very small and made up of huge swaths of dialog. Thus practically no time is spent on internal character development beyond "he was sad" or "he was happy."

Now, shallow characters aren't necessarily bad in a satire, particularly a satire about corporate culture. But Barry decides he wants to add depth without working to add the depth and makes the characters just look like psychopaths.

These are the following things the good characters do:
- One guy, Hack, sleeps with his girlfriend (Violet the attempted rape victim)'s sister, Claire. When they reveal their mutual attraction, Hack tells her that he actually loved Claire first. Claire doesn't slap him in the face and later sleeps with him.
- The suicidal character (Buy) totally gets over it when he sleeps with Jennifer Government, who previously interrogated him. One night with her healing pussy totally gets him over his misplaced guilt.
- Jen's daughter Kate, who is feeling neglected by her mother, totally gets over her separation anxiety after one meal with a total stranger. A total stranger who used to be suicidal.

Human beings do NOT act like that, or at least they don't act like without work from the author and dialog that isn't totally banal. And none of those situations can be explained away with humor, either.

The villains are also not so hot. The important John Nike is a puppy-kicking bastard and the unimportant John Nike is a rapist. I guess one came from the "satire" book and one came from the "look at me, the writer, I am attempting to be serious and failing" book. I guess I hated them, but the emotion was the equivalent of crying at "The Christmas Shoes" -- you know you're being played. Billy NRA was a totally useless, unfunny fleshbag and I wish he'd died. When I read in the back of the book that Barry previously cut another character out of the book I was flabbergasted -- was there actually a character more useless than Billy? Sheesh.

Oh, speaking of the NRA. Would it have killed Barry to have explained why an interest group became a mercenary organization? I mean, I made up the explanation that it was something like the League of Women Voters, who used to be a suffrage organization but after suffrage shifted their emphasis to voter education. Thus, when the world became corporate the unfettered sale of guns was considered good for the corporate market and the NRA changed their mission to reflect the changing times but ... that's not MY job to do that shit, man. No matter how much it makes me feel like a smarty pants ...

Look, I can't get over this, Barry. I have to say it again. After Violet fended off a rape attempt, I felt BAD for her. Yeah, that didn't excuse her actions later in the book, but DAMN, you'd think her sister or ex-lover could have thrown her a bone. But I hated them, anyway. They were cowardly shits who felt like they were revolutionaries for doing FAKE eco-terrorism but then the minute the corporations coughed at them they wanted to run home and eat wine and cheese and intellectually discuss Marx. Fuck those guys. I know this makes me sound like one of those Harry Potter fans who are convinced that the Slytherins are the real heroes of Harry Potter but I CAN'T HELP IT! THE HEROES SUCK SO BAD!

I mean, the book wasn't totally awful. At least it didn't totally undo the world in the end -- just stopped it from getting worse. And I did like the main character, but overall I felt like the book seriously, seriously wasted my time. At least I got it in a book exchange and didn't have to pay for it, but I'm pretty disappointed nonetheless.


Oh, and from my own research, Max Barry is the type of wanker who will sic fans on people who criticize him. If any of them come here ... IT'S JUST OPINION, GO AWAY.

Comments

[fax-celestis.livejournal.com]

Have you heard of NationStates?

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

Yeah, cyberweasel used to play it. The game may be fun, but the book still sucks.

[47nite.livejournal.com]

This sounds like the kind of book where, if the premise WAS that intriguing, I'd probably keep my focus on that and not give much thought to the sex (which is otherwise obligatory in many books to fulfill the "See? I'm being serious and giving characters a personal flair" quotient). That aspect usually invokes the least amount of thought/nuance (for meee).

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

There aren't any sex scenes, though. There's just bollocks character interaction.