Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

Apr 05, 2017JCLChrisK rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a book of ideas. A slight character story overlaid on a world of big ideas. Amusingly sad; sadly amusing. Consider, for instance, its beginning: "Sexual Responsibility is boring. "It isn't Ms. Brody's fault. She's a good teacher. She switches channels at appropriate moments, tases students who need tasing--zizzz-ZAAPPP!--and she only once got stuck in the garbage can beside her teaching station. She was a teeny bit weepy that day, but no drunker than normal . . . " Zoe lives in a near future world where capitalism and corporatism have run amok. In school, "we learn not only Sexual Responsibility but also Communication, Math, Corporate History, and Consumer Citizenship." Her life is an extrapolation from dynamics currently at play in our world. Those things have been exaggerated, but they are far from invented, and the book is full of sharp social commentary. Zoe's story, while poignant, could have been longer, deeper, and fuller. That social commentary, though, is hilariously, depressingly spot on, and makes this entirely worth reading.