My review of this book could be easily summarised by the beginning author's note, revealing this novel was written two decades ago but remained unpublished until this point. Of course this is due to the theme being 'poisonous' at the time, and the 2012 audience, becoming more recpetive. Nothing to do with Shriver becoming an international bestseller in the meantime.

I hate to do this negative review because I loved ..Kevin and enjoyed So Much for That, but I suspect this novel wasn't published earlier is simply because: It is not a very good novel.

The themes of terrorism and social cult of personality's jarr together despite in theory being ideal partners. Our cynical protag, Edgar is relate-able, but uncompelling, and the clunky prose makes a 400ish page novel feel like George RR Martin.

All in all, Shriver almost creates something special here, a fun-poking piece that could've been the modern catch-22. Instead we have a mash of humour, philosophical