The Mandibles: A family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver is a book about imminent financial distress for an entire American family.
Started: 5/2/2017
Completed: 6/16/1017
Recomendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: NPR
Review:
It cracked me up to hear Noah's Mill bourbon mentioned in this book of the future. It is a good bourbon and inexpensive. Alas, I thought it was not well known.
I did enjoy this book. I'm just not sure that there is much to recommend about it. It is a modern day near-future cautionary tale about the risk of currency devaluation in the United States. The caution is simply that it could happen and that there is not much that can be done once it does happen. The enormous consequences of such a crash are hashed out in their expected detail.
The end of the book feels rushed. It feels like the author suddenly had a much bigger novel than originally anticipated, but a sense that it was going to be pretty boring and fairly repetitive to hash it out in detail. One can almost feel the editor chopping at the book while it is being read as entire sections are removed or reorganized as flash-backs and the transitions feel abrupt. As a result, the read is not as enjoyable as it could be.
There is some decent economic theory and some study of the law behind this book and it helps with the realism. It seems like the editor wanted to leave some room for a sequel (which I will not read) but the book does stand on its own.
It cracked me up to hear Noah's Mill bourbon mentioned in this book of the future. It is a good bourbon and inexpensive. Alas, I thought it was not well known.
I did enjoy this book. I'm just not sure that there is much to recommend about it. It is a modern day near-future cautionary tale about the risk of currency devaluation in the United States. The caution is simply that it could happen and that there is not much that can be done once it does happen. The enormous consequences of such a crash are hashed out in their expected detail.
The end of the book feels rushed. It feels like the author suddenly had a much bigger novel than originally anticipated, but a sense that it was going to be pretty boring and fairly repetitive to hash it out in detail. One can almost feel the editor chopping at the book while it is being read as entire sections are removed or reorganized as flash-backs and the transitions feel abrupt. As a result, the read is not as enjoyable as it could be.
There is some decent economic theory and some study of the law behind this book and it helps with the realism. It seems like the editor wanted to leave some room for a sequel (which I will not read) but the book does stand on its own.
