Boomsday by Christopher Buckley Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Boomsday
Book Review: You gotta laugh...
Summary: 5 Stars
Listen, is everybody here reading Christopher Buckley? Seriously folks, you need to pick up a book. I know it's political satire. And a book about Social Security reform doesn't sound like it has a lot of potential. But trust me, this is laugh-out-loud funny stuff.
Who else could invent a pro-life organization called the Society for the Protection of Every Ribonucleic Molecule--or SPERM for short. Even his little throw-aways are fabulous. The protagonist is briefly incarcerated. In prison, there are so many jailed journalists refusing to name sources (from the Society Page, for example) that they have their own gang: Pulitzer Nation.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Cassandra Devine is a 29-year-old on a crusade. She feels passionately that her generation should not be bankrupted paying for the retirement benefits of baby boomers. With the government apparently unwilling to propose a workable solution she decides to bring this front and center in American politics as a "meta-issue." With her PR background and her senatorial mouthpiece she can make it happen. Suddenly "voluntary transitionsing," (legalized suicide at the age of 70 for tax breaks and other benefits) is all anyone can talk about. It goes from being a tool for dialogue to being seriously considered by voters.
Buckley has an amazing eye for skewering our culture. The reason he's so funny is that everything he observes is so painfully true! Fans of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report will surely enjoy.
Book Review: boomsday hurrah
Summary: 5 Stars
I found the novel quite enlightening. Thumbs up to Christopher Buckley on his on target humorBook Review: very funny but still a little lacking
Summary: 3 Stars
By Matthew W. Moran
Christopher Buckley has long since developed a reputation for outrageous political satire in novels like "Thank You For Smoking," and "No Way To Treat A First Lady." His latest, entitled, "Boomsday," continues in that tradition with "a modest proposal" so outlandish it could make Jonathan Swift turn red.
In Buckley's new novel, Cassandra Devine is a twenty-something on a mission. Already furious that her father spent her Yale tuition on a dotcom startup, Cassandra uses her wildly popular political blog as a platform to fix social security. Her solution: encourage the baby boomers who are bankrupting the system to "voluntarily transition" (i.e. commit suicide) with the benefit of tax breaks and incentives for their grandchildren. When young people begin protesting inside gated communities and defacing golf courses, Cassandra's blog gains national attention. But the story takes an unexpected twist when one-legged Massachussetts Senator Randolph Jepperson tries running for President - on Cassandra's platform - and makes her his chief advisor.
The story continues at a nearly dizzying pace with a cast of characters that also includes a pro-life Presidential candidate who may have killed his mother, and public relations spin master Terry Tucker. The witty author takes equal opportunity to skewer both generations and his dialogue is consistently humorous. However, his depictions are so clichéd - boomers play golf, steer yachts, and devise illegal kickbacks, while twenty-somethings gulp Red Bull and never unplug their IPods - that Buckley's characters lose a little authenticity. Indeed, in over 300 pages, there's no one here to root for - and maybe that's Buckley's point about our nation's capital.