June '03: Jennifer Government - Max Barry

agreed! this was, hands down, the best book i've read this year. or, dare i say, in the past few years. spread the word.

yea, it's ineed a very interesting book, although i have to disagree is one of the best of the year...i mean i dont know, but its missing something. its very interesting, and his style is jsut great, dont get me wrong...but i dont know. i could see this better on a movie than on a book..or perhaps i dont liek this kind of books then. like for instance i dont think i would read the matrix if there was a book..and this is a lot liek the matrix in some aspects

JG is amazing. I was hooked from the first page. A few days after I finished the book I read Syrup (in one sitting). Max Barry is amazing. Jennifer Government is definitely one of the best books I've read.

haha! thas funny! i did the exact same thing, i finished jennifer governmetn and then i took syrup. and in my opinion syrup is much better than fennifer gov

to be critical of the book, it was just ok. the story line was good, but the characters were poorly developed. i had a few problems with other bits of the book, such as the segmenting of the book and the overall flow of the book as a whole.
but that's just the opinion of one person.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by trypdwyre [/i]
[B]to be critical of the book, it was just ok. the story line was good, but the characters were poorly developed. i had a few problems with other bits of the book, such as the segmenting of the book and the overall flow of the book as a whole.
but that's just the opinion of one person. [/B][/QUOTE]

I liked the segmenting. It really encouraged you to keep reading to find out what happened to one character after it quickly changed to another charcter. This then had you caught up in these charcter's lives also. Although, it at times felt overwhelming the erratic set-up was pleasantly exhilarating.

i am making this post w/out looking at the thread...i haven't finished this book yet but as soon as i do i will be joining you. just wanted to let y'all know.

Mr. Greend:
Cool that you did what I did. I agree, JG is good but Syrup is probably better. The book is hilarious. I started reading it at about 11:45 PM one night and didn't put it down until I'd finished it...at about 4:00AM the next morning.

Syrup was ok. It started out good, but I think the middle/end seemed rushed. No way was it better than JG.

I read the whole book in one sitting. I've only done that with Chuck's books (IM was the exception, even though I enjoyed the hell out of it) and [i]The Wasp Factory[/i]. It's got something going for it right there.

One thing that bothered me is Max Barry did that thing where you think a character's dead, but then a couple scenes later you find out they aren't. In general, there were way too many points where you're just yanked out of scenes and thrown into another one. I guess that's just his style, but it got to be a bit much at times.

* * * S P O I L E R S B E L O W * * *
Another thing is there were a few things I could see coming from a few pages away. "Oh, they're going to get Billy NRA to shoot the President." "Oh, John Nike's going to be impaled on the door handle of the Nike Town in a bigass display of irony." I thought that maybe the defective piece of steel sheeting Billy NRA let slip through production when he worked in the tank factory would come into play towards the end, but I was wrong.

* * * END SPOILERS * * *

See, I like someone to surprise the hell out of me and make me rethink the entire rest of the book, not just a few pages where I assumed than an important character was dead but really wasn't.

Anyone notice the barcode on the front of the book (the numbers, at least) are the same from the back except for the last digit? Anyone know if this is an inside joke or because Mattel wouldn't let them use the actual barcode from Malibu Barbie?

This book was pretty good, very satisfying. It actually took me an extraordinarily long time to finish (although i do read incredibly slow anyway). It didn't really hold me until near the end. That said, it was still damn good. That's all i got for now.

It felt like Max wrote JG in the idea of it being a movie. I could see the cigarette burns at the top right corner of my brain after finishing sub-chapters.

Overall, I thought it was a great book. The character development took a while since there were so many to take care of, but the last 100 pages really kicked into gear. Syrup read a lot faster, with more charm and inspiration, But JG had a much cleverer ending. As someone said above, Syrup seemed rushed near the end. I can’t wait for another Max Barry novel. I hope he isn’t too busy playing Nation States. I bet that’s got to be totally addicting for him.

A couple of questions and possible spoilers:

Who was the Pepsi kid? I haven't had time to read back and look for someone named Theodore. I guess that's what I get for trying to read 4 books at the same time.

Did Max put himself in the book? Wasn't synergy the name of Six's company? Is this frowned upon in the literary world? I love character tie-ins and author appearances.

My favorite line in the book was when JG fell onto the Mercedes:

“Honey?” a woman said. “I’ll call help for you. What’s your name?”

“Government.” Her tongue felt like a bloated, broken sausage. All she could taste was blood. “Jennifer Government.”

totally agree to the movie thing. The pepsi kid followed John around for a good part of the book, he was pepsi's liason.

I was just wondering why he made a point to tell us what his real name was. I guess it was just a respect thing and nothing more.

just finished it and it was amazing, apparently Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney plan on filming JG, cant wait.

i have to say, that the best written part of the book was at the very end, when John Nike runs into the Pepsi Liason. but as for the rest of the book, my opinion is still as stated above...

Anyone else have a Nation on the book related internet game Nation States run by Max Barry himself?

I just got one today. It is called Empire of Ewigkeit.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by trypdwyre [/i]
[B]i have to say, that the best written part of the book was at the very end, when John Nike runs into the Pepsi Liason. but as for the rest of the book, my opinion is still as stated above... [/B][/QUOTE]
i thought that was the best part too.
Oh and if that JG movie thing is true it's gonna be freakin awesome.

Review on CNN:

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/06/09/review.jennifer.government/index.html[/url]

I didn't check out the other posts to see if this was posted already b/c I didn't want to read any spoilers!

"(It's been optioned by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's Section Eight production company.)" sweeet. (from bronskrat's link of course but im sure you've read it)

Great book. Read it in two days. Have to check out Syrup.

If/when the movie comes out, Christian Bale should play the role of John Nike (liason).

DUDE! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT! and the other one should be the good lokin guy from andy richter, that was my first thought. i think i said this already...

DUUUUUDE

Well I'm a bit late on this but here are my thoughts.

I laughed very hard when Haley McDonald's got shot, because I'm a sick, sick man, and I hoped the rest of the book would be that mean but it wasn't. Overall I thought it was good but not spectacular, I was hoping for more corporate warfare, but I'm just a dumbass who likes to see things get blown up by greedy corporations. It started off nice and mean but then it developed a heart, that was my only real problem with it. However, I'd still pay ten bucks to go see the movie.

Also, am I the only one who couldn't get the image of Seth Green as the Pepsi liason out of my head?

i was hoping it would be dark too when haley was killed (although i didnt laugh). I never thought of seth green, but he WOULD be good for the movie.

When she died I was just like, Oh man, that's so mean, tee-hee-hee, especially the fact that Buy had given her the money, hee-hee.

I find cruelty to children to be the most amusing thing, I'm surprised I'm not laughing that much while reading Battle Royale.

FUCKING AWESOME BOOK. i gasped out loud reading it quite a few times.

I just finished the book, read it in three days. Awesome book. I totally saw Willem Dafoe as John Nike, and William H. Macy as Hack for some reason.

Willem Dafoe is one of those weird guys like Chirstopher Walken and John Malkovich that just by showing up make any movie ten times better.

I'm reading it at the moment, half-time of the book and it's really fast The story keeps on moving all the time, really nice.

So, I've finished it this morning (living in germany so it's 11:30 am ) and it's really the second best book I've read this year (best: the stranger - camus).

It's fantastic how the story keeps on moving wihtout boring storylines.

I constantly hear people bitching and complaining about paying taxes and I believe part of it its because they can't imagine how a society without taxes will be. That is what this book does for you it helps you to imagine that society.