{"id":990,"date":"2018-02-15T15:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T22:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=990"},"modified":"2018-02-11T14:46:58","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T21:46:58","slug":"book-mr-bookers-summer-vacation-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/15\/book-mr-bookers-summer-vacation-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Mr. Booker’s Summer Vacation (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mr.Mr. Booker\u2019s Summer Vacation
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2017
\nAuthor: Mark Lages
\nLength: 312 pages<\/p>\n

***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY***<\/p>\n

Can we please stop using fiction as an avenue to whine and complain about the state of current affairs? Books like\u00a0Mr. Booker\u2019s Summer Vacation<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Nobel Peace Prize<\/a><\/em>\u00a0do nothing other than highlight how broken society is, all the while never providing any actual solutions to these problems. The only way these authors think they can get away with it is by packaging it as \u201cfiction.\u201d Let\u2019s face it, just title the book,\u00a0Things are terrible and here\u2019s why everyone else is to blame<\/em>\u00a0and put it in the non-fiction section.<\/p>\n

Regarding\u00a0Mr. Booker\u2019s Summer Vacation<\/em>, I couldn\u2019t figure out who the target audience was. It\u2019s written in a clipped, repetitive, redundant, and childish prose that makes me think it\u2019s targeted toward children. However, with sexual situations (including a story about rape), violent and unnecessary subplots, and a sprinkling of profanity, I would never give this book to a child to read. If it\u2019s supposed to be geared toward adults, then it\u2019s a super-judgmental narrative that makes the author seem \u201cholier than thou.\u201d What bugs me the most about this is that it\u2019s so American-centric. Why bash the USA so much, but fail to mention the Holocaust, or the genocide in Africa, or the rape of Nanking? If aliens are supposed to determine humanity\u2019s fate, why focus on just one country\u2019s terrible actions?<\/p>\n

As far as the writing goes, there are plenty of amateur mistakes permeating the narrative. The framing device of the author telling this person\u2019s story is unnecessary and pulled me out of the \u201cstory\u201d more often than not. Furthermore, it\u2019s hard to keep reading a story when it starts with \u201cI want to keep this man\u2019s identity a secret,\u201d followed by tons of specific details about this man dropped in one huge exposition dump. The dialogue was flat, repetitive (as in, \u201cis there an echo in here?\u201d), and unemotional, even to the point where I thought all the characters (including the human) were robots. The flashbacks and flash-forward were unnecessary and never made me empathize with the main character at all.<\/p>\n

A judgmental and poorly written book, I give\u00a0Mr. Booker\u2019s Summer Vacation<\/em>\u00a01.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Booker\u2019s Summer Vacation Year: 2017 Author: Mark Lages Length: 312 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** Can we please stop using fiction as an avenue to whine and complain about the state of current affairs? Books like\u00a0Mr. Booker\u2019s Summer Vacation\u00a0and\u00a0Nobel Peace Prize\u00a0do nothing other than highlight how broken society is, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236,54],"tags":[349,70,1146,55,97,339,308,1144,1145,267,8],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-5-stars","category-book","tag-349","tag-aliens","tag-america-hating","tag-book","tag-giveaway","tag-goodreads","tag-goodreads-giveaway","tag-mark-lages","tag-mr-bookers-summer-vacation","tag-non-fiction","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":998,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}