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This is an intelligently written book by a talented writer, but it has such a cynical worldview, I’ve got to mention that I do not recommend you read it. It does get you thinking about all the futility and corruption in the world, but offers no solution. It just throughly convinces you of it and leaves you to wallow there.

This book tackles the pointlessness of the war in Iraq, the contaminating poisons leaked by munitions plants, and the incarceration of innocents in the prison-for-profit system, as well as the negative fallout that occurs from actually trying to do anything about such colossal problems. Everything is portrayed as tangled in a web of complicit duplicity, covered-up and compounding, spiraling beyond redemption.  

Is man by nature warlike? How do we bring genuine hope and accountability of good into any situation? How do we get past waste and pointlessness, to sow true bonds of health, freedom, and virtue in the world?

I give this novel just 3 stars, and suggest reading it only if you have nothing already that you need to pray about. Each one of us is urgently needed for the sad version of life depicted here not to ring true. To that end, I’d rather you would read something more encouraging, and less defeatist– something productive, progressive and full of deliverance.

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