Anthem

It's a Gen Z Mad Max Fury Road meets The Stand set exactly one second in the future. This is what you get when you ask ChatGPT to fictionalize the news as it's understood by Reddit. It's the mutant offspring of Don't Look Up savagely violated by Fight Club. I mean it could be scathing satirical fun if it wasn't hewn so close to how the world works now.

It does kick off with a promising start. A massive teenage suicide epidemic seems to have gone viral. Massive numbers of kids impassively off themselves leaving the enigmatic symbol A11 behind. One of the victims is 17 year old Claire Oliver, daughter of the CEO of Rise Pharmaceuticals that has made millions on the sale of oxycodone. Her brother is shuttled off to be heavily medicated and therapeutically placated at the ritzy Float Anxiety Abatement Center where he meets a monk-like 14 year old who has the temerity to be referred to as the Prophet.

He's roped Simon into his mission that will involve thinly veiled counterparts to Jeffrey Epstein, Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump, the Sacklers, QAnon, Proud Boys and Juggalos alongside characters that refer to themselves as Tyler Durdens, War Boys, Katniss, Cyclops, Legolas and Randall Flagg. And maybe therein lies the problem. The line between Hollywood dystopia and our real world farce is hopelessly porous. The book is unwilling to commit to being a cynically fun satire or novelistic thrill ride and in trying to do both instead ends up feeling ponderously nihilistic and a bit of a buzzkill. So it goes.

4.5

This a dark story of America rapidly falling into dystopia in all-too familiar fashion, while simultaneously a story of a group of young misfits overcoming odds to save one of their own from evil exploitation. Every element & character in this novel is rather transparently transcribed from current events and notorious people (risky on the author's part because it can become rapidly dated, and indeed, you can see that happening already). I would recommend this book because I really enjoyed it, it reads like Kurt Vonnegut with a shade of Steven King thrown in, and would no doubt qualify into the magical realism camp as well, if one wanted to shelve it there. Indeed, I enjoyed it, but, without being too critical, it did read like ersatz Vonnegut in many places at which I did cringe, a bit. I'd also warn readers that Hawley changes character perspective fluidly and without warning in many places, which kept me on my toes, and may not be every reader's cup of tea. The author wears his perspective on his sleeve, but, in a good way. Despite this and other nit picks, it gets the solid thumbs up for an engaging read.