Rating: 
Summary: Hardly biting satire...
Review: If you are looking for a scathing critique of Capitalism and globalization, keep looking...This book is a light, entertaining thriller. It can be read in a short amount of time without a lot of mental energy invested. If entertainment and escape is your thing, you won't be dissappointed. If you were looking for the promised political satire, you will be dissappointed. I guess I should have figured as much after reading that Hollywood was already optioning the book...hardly the stamp of controversy. If this is what "social protest" literature has come to, then things are even worse than they appear. Anyway, as light escapist novels go, it wasn't bad. Not great, but not bad. As political satire goes it was...well...light and escapist. I got suckered by the premise, which showed promise. Although that promise never came close to materializing, I ended up reading the whole thing in a couple hours and not throwing it against the wall, so I'm giving it three stars.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy concept, light execution
Review: Although the concept of the book is excellent and very timely in light of current business and terror news, the execution of the plot leaves something to be desired. Characters are rendered with a light hand, leaving much of their motivations a mystery and resulting in a disconnect relative to the serious issues being raised. Some key turns of the plot are similarly brushed over, leaving the reader to wonder why a scene or scenes were included in the final edit. Still, it's an entertaining read and a fun way to spend a couple hours. I recommend it to readers who are not looking for a serious indictment of capitalism but rather a fun take on the issues.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun read.
Review: I am a loving and devoted disciple of capitalism (nothing has a better record for creating prosperity). You might think a book satirizing capitalism would offend me. You would be wrong - I thought it was a riot. Corporations make people take the corporate name as their last name, law enforcement is handled by private enterprise, and legal proceedings are handled sans judges (or it is implied that they are). The book starts with a clever marketing ploy by the VP of Guerilla Marketing for Nike's Down Under office (Australia is a USA country - no taxes, almost no government). The ploy, have people buying their product killed (just a few, 10 or so) to give the line street credit. He dupes an incompetent underling into doing it, an incompetent who goes to the Police. The Police ™ tell him he can sub-contract them, and they will do it! Hilarity, hi-jinks, and assassination ensue. Enter Jennifer Government, field Agent with an axe to grind, a bar-code tattoo under her eye, and a mean streak. I like her. Some of the book is predictable, formula stuff (interpersonal relationships in particular); but the formula is okay here. Some things are not formula, and they keep it interesting. I won't spoil it for you, but I have to mention my favorite scene: a riot breaks out between a Burger King and a McDonalds - the allies of McDonalds decide to end the riot and destroy the Burger King restaurant with a Surface to Surface missile! You gotta love that!
Rating:
Summary: Good Premise, but that's about it....
Review: The barcode caught my eye in a bookstore (good marketing, btw.. ^-^!),but I'm glad I borrowed it rather than bought it. Why? The premise was a good idea, the idea of the NRA duking it out w/ the Police kinda was cute and mega-companies waging war on other mega-companies was good, too. It took a good 3/4 of the way through the book to get me "hooked", but that was ok since the ending was decent. The action was fast paced which took my mind off the fact that the characters where rather under-developed and the "scene" descriptions need work. Overall, it was a decent read, not bad, but not excellent either... Hopefully, the next book will combine the good action parts & interesting (abeit a bit predictable) plot twists with better-developed characters and his intriguing premises. As a reader I like to *CARE* about the characters, and I feel the same way towards "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" (Both by Dan Brown) great premises & action sequences, but lousy character-development. Thanks for the interesting read! -ps- I thought the description of Dallas was hilarious! ^-^!
Rating:
Summary: No Character?
Review: Just a quick counterpoint to some reviewers saying the characters don't have enough depth: Maybe that's Barry's point, that people in his world don't have much depth. This is due to rampant consumerism, and minds rented, leased, or owned by corporations. A lot of people in this future, and a lot of people period don't have much depth :-). Some folks said the characters in "Last Days of Disco" (Manhattan circa early 80's) were "superficial." Yes! That's the point! Or Bret Easton Ellis characters are "affectless." Exactly! Since I liked Jennifer Government (it's quick, to the point, action packed), I'm biased. But I think Barry purposefully paints a superficial, shallow world through his characters. The characters don't get in the way of his themes, and they accentuate that hyper-capitalism can stunt character growth. Oh, and Farenheit 451 had shallow characters too... yadda, yadda, yadda. Overall, Jennifer Government is a fun, lively addendum to non-fiction I'd recommend, like No Logo, Culture Jam, even Fast Food Nation....
Rating:
Summary: Just skimmed the surface; Needed more depth
Review: In this alter-reality novel, where "taxation has been abolished, the government has been privatized, and employees take the surname of the company they work for," characters are colorful and interesting but (I thought) superficial. I enjoy these types of novels, where companies are the bad-guys, but there was something substantial missing from this novel: depth. Jennifer Government's relationship with her daughter is a dichotomy of "I'm here for you" and "I gotta go to the other side of the planet for work," which she never seems to feel too remorseful about. The person she leaves in care of her daughter was someone she's only met twice. Business people make random decisions for seemingly no good reason. Side characters pop in and out of the story with no inner-development to explain their actions. Jennifer is literally obsessed with catching John Nike. You know they must have history together for her to break official rules/orders, leave her daughter and recruit/blackmail people into helping her. Once you find out what the reason is in the end, though, it just doesn't seem convincing enough. This was a nice, light read for 320 pages but I would have liked this book more if it was heartier: more information, more background, etc. If you want to read another book along the same plotline, where advertising to the public and sales are number one, try The Savage Girl by Alex Shakar. I enjoyed that book more than this.
Rating:
Summary: Great novel! Funny and insightful
Review: Max Barry's novel Jennifer Government is fascinating. Its dystopian future view is a little depressing, but thats the inevitable result of the degree of satire in the novel. I'd recommend heartily. Good stuff and I'm going to order Syrup his prior novel now.
Rating: 
Summary: Clever idea, no character development
Review: For the first half of the book, I was excited and amused by Jennifer Government, but Barry's idea of character development is having the characters have sex. For the second half of the book, I just didn't care about the characters. There were only shallow, cliche reasons for the characters to do what they do. Also, he left loose ends at the end of the book. Three characters just disappeared. Barry's idea that corporations take over the world is an interesting extreme, but he relies too much on guns and explosions than having characters' actions make sense.
Rating: 
Summary: Nope.
Review: Anyone comparing this to "Catch 22" should have read both books. Inventive as it is, it remains a one-gag comedy. That George Clooney has optioned it is telling. Will Jennifer stop him before he thrills again?
Rating:
Summary: Jennifer Government
Review: Don't be fooled. Jennifer Government does not rank with Orwell, or the film Brazil, or any other major Dystopian fable. This is because, after luring the reader into a compelling Dystopian environment, where corporations openly rule, and the government can't compete with the even lower morality of big-business, Max Barry decides to turn the whole affair into an Elmore Leonard novel, or a Carl Hiaasen romp. This book, somewhere along the path, morphs into a clicheed, smart-mouthed crime novel, with lots of zany characters running around with guns trying to get the best of each other by hook, or by crook, or by cellphone, or by board meeting, or by missile launch, or by whatever. Characters are interesting at first, but they end up merely gliding along after they have been suitably plugged in and lit up for display, and as the book progressed, with lots of chaos flowering in all directions as we bounced back and forth between players, I felt it didn't matter who was who, or what they were like. Action and sardonic wit prevail, with Jennifer Government herself coming in a close second to Slickness, when it comes to listing the reasons to read this book. Yes, Jennifer emerges as a strong character, but then some clicheed villains decide to do the usual, go after her family, sparking a final gun-bedecked confrontation, and here we go again. Characters' final fates are nicely wrapped up in prompt, slick style as the pages dwindle, and there we have our promising Dystopian setting having done not much more than supply smart remarks and some familiar action sequences. But, it was all kind of entertaining. The SF underpinnings struggle mightily throughout to somehow mean something; the spirit of Orwell battles nobly with the overpowering Carl Hiaasen, witty-slick-crime-escapade virus that slowly takes over the book. Orwell loses. Read it for fun and games; go elsewhere for a really disturbing, really necessary Dystopia.
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