author: Dave Eggers

name: Steev

average rating: 3.45

book published: 2013

rating: 4

read at: 2017/07/02

date added: 2017/07/03

shelves: fun, novels, own-it, politics

review:
This is a super scary and topical book.
It's mostly quite good, as all of Eggers' stuff usually is.
I have a slight problem with the portrayal of the main, first-person character, Mae Holland. She seems almost pathologically un-self-aware or at least self-stupid. It seems at least somewhat unrealistic, probably very unrealistic, the ease with which she gets swayed and brainwashed into the cult that is this kind of Google/Facebook/Amazon conglomerate corporation. She's a 20-something, smart woman, and yet somehow she just blithely goes along with all these bizarre and creepy things her new employer is doing. There doesn't seem to be any character development, she goes from being a clueless noob to being a clueless high-level PR flack, with, to be honest, no real reason to identify with or care about her. She just is this kind of pawn for the higher-ups who never puts up even a modicum of resistance; [spoilers removed]So the effect is of this lengthy morality parable with none of the satisfaction of a good narrative. As such, the message is important, but it could have been a short op-ed essay in Harper's to equal effect. Although then I guess he couldn't have sold movie rights...