Kevin Mednick

Whew! Finally finished with this GoodReads FirstReads win. As much as I liked the last 4th of the book when things finally came together, the first half was almost painful to get through. It's not that it's bad exactly, it's just that it didn't click with me. Whether it's the book itself (which I think not because I did enjoy the last part of it immensely) or current life events that have me tied up in knots that made it this way for me, but for whatever reason, I mostly just wanted to get the reading of this book over with. It's not that long, only 205 pages, but it took me over a week to drag myself through the first hundred pages. I finished the last 105 this evening. I also think one needs to be of either an older generation or younger generation than I to appreciate many of the references and mentions in this book.

My main difficulty with the first half of the book is there's no sense of cohesiveness and too many characters with too many different situations being introduced too rapidly, and the links between them are not even moderately apparent until we get to the middle portion of the book. The first half almost reads like a string of incredibly short stories that have little if anything to do with each other except that they're printed within the same book covers as each other. Again, current life issues and stresses may have gotten in the way of my making connections that other readers will make naturally and thus will allow them to enjoy the book more than I did. Also, I only found the book mildly amusing and certainly not a "rollicking consumer rights tale" (Kirkus) as advertised on the book. Consumer rights, yes. Rollicking, no. Again, personal issues may have interfered.

Overall, if you're looking for a light read and like it when the little guy takes on corporate monstrosities, you'll like this book. Especially if you like the story told in more a fairytale fashion than reality (I mean, come on...a random multimillionaire on the side of consumer rights and a woman who shorts out electronics just with her presence? Really?).… (mer)