Rating: 
Summary: Did I read the wrong book?
Review: "Hilarious"? "Satire"? "Similar to Douglas Adams"??? What are you people talking about?! This book did not have an ironic paragraph in it. The author never once gave the impression that he was writing this as anything but completely straight. There was no satire! As for comparing it to Douglas Adams, all I can guess is that some people have never actually read anything by Adams. Doug created humor by taking cliches and expectations and either pushing them to their ultimate limit, or doing the exact opposite, along with a healthy dose of totally random weirdness. Mr. Barry never does anything like that. He's just telling a freaking story. It's not exactly a BAD story, in and of itself, but a lot of people seem to be seeing a lot of stuff that just isn't there.
Yes, his... very near future? Alternate universe? ...pushes some of corporate America's business practices to a typically illogical end, but that's just the problem. Few, if any, of the things his companies do are really all that far-fetched! Some of them are just a few steps away right now! I don't even think you could compare this to SCOTT Adams for literary satire. Again, the story itself is not bad, not good, just okay, but don't expect many chuckles or even ironic smiles along the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent plot, weak characters
Review: Almost everything in the United States and its affiliated countries (including Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain) is privatized. People take the surnames of the companies they work for. Kids go to corporate-run schools. Even freeways are private, costing a dollar a mile. The Government investigates and prosecutes crime, but that's about all they do, and they can only do it if they can raise funding from the victims.The story starts when Hack Nike, a hapless corporate merchandiser, is approached by a couple of guys, both named John Nike, with a contract for a Marketing job, which he signs without reading. He finds out that the contract involves killing the first people who buy Nike's new product, "Nike Mercurys", in order to generate market demand. Since he doesn't want to kill anyone, he subcontracts with the Police, who then subcontract to the NRA, which has evolved into a company of mercenaries. Jennifer Government and her fellow government agents get a tip that the murders are about to happen, and are in place at the local Nike store. Also on location is Buy Mitsui, a stockbrocker who is so relieved that he's met his annual quota that he gives a lot of money to a random kid, Hayley McDonald's, who longs for a new pair of Nike Mercurys but doesn't have the money. Hayley gets killed in front of Buy, and the bad guys get away from Jennifer. Jennifer investigates the crime amid a lot of other supporting characters and subplots that all come together in a convoluted but brilliant way. The plotting is excellent: creative and unexpected. The world Max Barry creates is intricate and well-rounded. And although it would be easy to make a statement about how all corporations are evil with this kind of speculative fiction, Mr. Barry does not fall into this trap. For example, even though the ultra-free-market mentality is delightfully skewered, so is the ineffectually idealistic protest group. There are no happy solutions to the ludicrous overarching free market, and this free market, while awful, ultimately turns out not to be completely terrible, either. The one weak point in this book is the characters, who are neither unexpected nor well-rounded: Jennifer is an overachieving public servant with a mysterious past who doesn't have enough time for her daughter; John Nike (one of the John Nikes, anyway) is sheer evil; Billy NRA is a lying, inept doofus; Hack Nike is a hapless idiot who falls in with a group of equally idiotic socialist protesters; Violet ExxonMobile is scheming and ineffectual.
Rating: 
Summary: Capitalism gobbles up the world
Review: and people become simply employees within a conglomerate, distinguishable only by their first names. The premise and overall plot are intriguing, but I don't think this book is for everyone. Barry's Gen X background informs the novel, creating a distinctive method of story telling. For example, the action scenes are reminiscent of typical big budget action flicks with thin character development to match. The jumpiness of the narrative is also an example of Gen Xers proclivity for short attention spans. Despite the flaws in dialogue and characterizations, this is a distinctly post-modern and slightly campy piece of science fiction that weaves a cautionary tale of capitalism and its effects.
Rating:
Summary: 1984 it's not, but it's still interesting
Review: As an avid player of the online game NationStates, I was exposed to the book through the presence of the game as a promotional device for the book. The more intensely I got into the roleplaying game, the more interested I got in reading the book, so putting my recent history of not finishing books I started, I bought Jennifer Government.
I've seen the book compared to George Orwell's 1984 and recently, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Since I'm not that familiar with Brave New World, I'll focus mainly on 1984. Both Jennifer Government and 1984 require that the reader suspend disbelief to a certain extent. Big Brother as a growing menace to freedom or corporations taking over the world are both premises that sound extreme to the casual reader. But while Orwell is able to craft a story that becomes a clear cautionary tale, Max Barry seems to be caught up more in the humorous aspects of poking fun at the Nikes or the McDonalds of the world.
While Barry's writing starts out slowly enough, with seemingly outrageous plots that make suspension of disbelief harder to accomplish, he eventually is able to take the reader through the suspenseful points and allow the reader to picture the events happening. Try as you might to show your disbelief in the events, you still read on to find out what happens in the end and find out if Jennifer Government can get her man.
Barry eventually makes his point that capitalizm (his spelling) running unfettered can have undesirable consequences, but it wsan't quite the polished work that Orwell's classic was. Still, it was an entertaining read and it was clever to use the online game to promote the book.
Rating:
Summary: Very Fast, Very Fun
Review: Barry's work is excellent. 'Jennifer Government' is an excellent novel in which William Gibson meets Dave Barry. A hilarious social satire about the corporate world, Barry's novel succeeds because he avoids the particular slang that permeates Gibson's work. Every phrase in the novel is clear and obvious,and the marketing euphemisms used will make you laugh out loud. And fittingly enough for a novel about marketing to a generation with incredibly short attention spans, 'Jennifer Government' is a quick and easy read that will leave you smiling all day.
Rating:
Summary: It's not Tolstoy, but so what
Review: I loved this book. Yes, the characters are two-dimensional and there is little in terms of character development. Yes, dialog is trite at times. But in the end, I loved this book. What gets overlooked in some reviews is that this book isn't meant to be the shining beacon of great literature. Personally, I think the simple characters, simple dialog, and the bizarre, convulted plot(s) all work exactly they way they should.
Tolstoy, this isn't. But if you want a fun book to read, pick up this one.
Rating: 
Summary: wonderful dystopia
Review: I read it, loved it, and am giving it to my brother as a birthday present.
Rating:
Summary: Good idea - very weak characterization
Review: I'm rating Jennifer Government a 2 star, but it really should be a 2.5 (it is an average book).
Strong points:
Good premise.
The dust jacket artwork is excellent.
This book is quite humorous, and the author must have spent a great deal of time working on a style that is similar to Douglas Adams with a bit of Heller (Catch-22, as mentioned on the dust jacket) tossed in for good measure.
It is a fast read, and the pages are easily consumed.
There is a great deal of humor; however I am not sure that the funny aspects will tickle each reader the same way. The mature adult reader will no doubt be laughing at the absurdity of the characters and the satirical unrealism of the enjoyable plot.
Weak points:
Paper-thin characterization really takes away from the overall story. There is virtually no depth to any of them. Seriously. Sit-com television characters have more depth. While that adds to the absurdity of the plot, and overall humor, it just makes this work of fiction feel very, very lightweight, and not what one usually expects for the novel form of media. It also hurt the satirical message the author is attempting to make. (Is he even seriously making such a pro-socialist argument about capitalism or just fooling around?). Note that the dust jacket comparison of Jennifer Government to Catch-22 fails completely under this aspect.
In Catch-22, Heller's characters, are very well developed and complex - this is one of the things that make that a classic piece of literature. Again, one usually expects a lot more depth from a book than is what is served up for television and even full-feature length movies. Perhaps this is why various reader-reviewers think this will make a better movie than a novel. I certainly agree with that assertion.
Rating:
Summary: If Christopher Buckley Had Written Snow Crash
Review: If Christopher Buckley had written Snow Crash it might have come off something like Max Barry's Jennifer Government. With great wit and satirism, Barry has painted a futuristic world in which capitalizm is the primary force of society to the extent that every individual takes the last name of the institution with which they are affiliated. Thus, characters like John Nike collide with Billy NRA and Jennifer Government in a high speed suspenseful plot. The plot moves along quickly, although Barry does rely a bit too heavily on the "small world" phenomenon. Characters involved in different subplots know each other and it all smashes together in some fairly violent scenes. The pace of the book is definitely plot-driven, and Barry sacrifices some character development to make his points about capitalism and the death of the individual. That said, this is a very funny book and an entertaining read, if a little on the fluffy side.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Satire of Capitalizm [sic]
Review: Jennifer Government was a fun, light, satire of capitalism. It is very plot-driven, and as the novel unfolds you just have to smile at Barry's wry and dystopian view of the future. Privatized governments, frequent flyer programs causing major corporations to form two competing "teams" at war with one another, bar-code tatoos, and other details make the book a clever satire of what Barry calls "capitalizm." The book itself is organized in very short chapters (2-5 pages each, typically) and Max Barry's prose is a bit plain, but it gets the job done. As I said, the book is very plot-driven, and it moves quickly. The book will be easily adapted to become a big-time blockbuster movie, if it ever comes to that -- it's filled with the requisite shoot-outs, superficial dialogue, an cliche'd characters. But it's all in good fun. Overall, I'd recommend the book as a light summer read. I polished it off on a long plane ride, and it made the trip pass quickly & enjoyably.
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