What On Earth Am I Reading?

Hello again, my wonderful readers! Welcome back to my blog. I want to introduce you all to the book I am currently reading which is Jennifer Government, by Max Barry.

To be completely honest, I do not have a specific topic for this essay so I am mostly going to talk about the things that caught my attention while reading. But first, let me provide you with some background about the book.

It is set in a type of dystopian era where things are almost perfect for the people living in that society. The entire world is basically owned by corporate companies that are for profit organizations. In most markets, the government has some type of influence on how things are produced, bought, and sold, however, in this society, the government basically has no say in anything that any company does. Finally, it can be compared to the novel 1984 by George Orwell, however, it criticizes the fact that there is not enough political power as opposed to too much political power. But that is basically an overall breakdown of the whole book. Let us get into the weirder things.

Now, the first thing that caught my eye was the fact that this girl had a barcode tattooed under her eye. Out of all the tattoos, someone could possibly get, she chooses a barcode.  Really? It probably has some deeper meaning in the rest of the book so maybe I should not judge just yet.

Another thing I noticed was the fact that every single chapter that I have read so far has been named after some type of company. When I first started reading, I thought it was coincidental how the first couple of chapters were named after big name companies. As I kept reading, I saw that literally every single last chapter was named after a company whether it be big or small. Weird, right?

This next thing actually kind of scares me. Remember how in the beginning I said that the whole world is basically controlled by corporate companies? Well, the United States has control over those companies and all of the other countries in the world. That’s kind of scary. The United States is already very powerful as it is, but to have control over every single country in the world? Now that is something else.

Another aspect that I am sure most adults would love is the fact that taxes are illegal. Other places in the world are ridiculed if they still allow their citizens to pay taxes. I thought this was so funny because the way they were making fun of other countries was probably the funniest thing I have ever read in a single book. I thought it was probably the dumbest thing to allow taxes to be illegal because how would the world even make money? But I mean, I'm not one to judge how people make their money so shout out to the world of Jennifer Government.