Syrup by Maxx Barry Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Syrup
Book Review: Mktg
Summary: 5 Stars
I think it's a toss up between this one and his book Company for my favorite Max Barry book. Very enjoyable. I couldn't stop reading.Book Review: Most entertaining book ever!
Summary: 5 Stars
Well i'm only 40 pages into it and it's already the most enjoyable booki have ever read. The humor in it is simply amazing. I have never really laughed out loud while reading before.Book Review: Never heard of this before I picked it up.
Summary: 5 Stars
I must first admit that I spend too much time thinking of ways to be both rich and famous, much like Scat, the main character of Syrup. The lifestyle is pelted at us from every angle at a very early age but few of us ever actually take a bite out of it. This is a novel that comically portrays an average creative who perceives that his reality is almost incredibly amazing... but not. The only author I can think to compare Barry to is Nick Hornby in regards to his ability to peer into the mind of the American Male. Pick it up and don't schedule any secret, back-stabbing corporate meetings until well after you've finished it... You'll want to spend at least a few hours wracking your brain for your own million-dollar ideas.Book Review: Next Overnight Sensation
Summary: 5 Stars
Maxx Barry, author of "Syrup" has written a brilliant, satirical novel of marketing. Maxx or Max ( he added an extra "x" to make his name look more worldly) was a teacher of marketing back in Australia. He used to work for Hewlett Packard, and he has imagined life in the US-he has never visited us.Scat, also know has Micahel George Holloway, wants to be famous. He could be an actor, but he can't act. He does have one option: he can be very young, very cool, and very, very rich. This line of fame is open to everyone. All he has to do is find something he is so good at that he can make a million dollars by the time he is twenty-five.
Scat has read somewhere "that the average adult has three million-dollar ideas per year. Ideas are cheap, what you need is the conviction to follow through!" Scat's life started at ten past two in the morning of January 7th. He got THE IDEA.
Scat developed the idea for a new cola drink with a name so smooth all the "x" generation would drink it up. Scat got the inside scoop and developed a meeting with a representative of a cola company. The rep who's name is 6, was quite interested and brought Scat into the company. Unfortunately, someone stole the idea and Scat and 6 are left to reclaim their careers. Scat and 6 have energy, imagination, ambition and just enough of a work ethic to follow through. The novel follows their paths as they heed the underhandedness of the Black Hats.
The brilliance of Maxx Barry is evident in his writing. His humour and intelligence bring us through LA, Hollywood, corporate America and Madison Avenue and into the marketing world. Marketing is the biggest industry in the world, and it is invisible. "Marketing is like Los Angeles. It is a gorgeous, brainless model on cocaine having relations, drinking Perrier."
The characters that Maxx Barry has developed, Scat, 6, @, Sneaky Pete more than live up to their names. They are cool, charming and hilarious. This novel is a must read- move on over Seinfeld- Maxx has arrived.
prisrob
Book Review: Novel 2.0
Summary: 5 Stars
If "Syrup" rings with about as much authenticity of corporate life as "Green Acres" does to farming, who cares? It is an outrageous, rollicking, frenetic romp through American culture and marketing than only Gen X could write; that could only take place in LA.
Our hero, "Scat", is a lovable slacker who heard somewhere that everyone gets three one million dollar ideas a year. Three great ideas - but not a clue how to handle them. Which Scat proves after coming up a (supposedly) brilliant concept for new cola brand and his soon out of his business league with roommate and alleged marketing genius "Sneaky Pete", and "6", the Coke brand manager who is as impossibly beautiful as she is subzero cool. Sexual tension, a breathless pace, and more cliffhangers than ten thousand corporate drones would experience over ten careers. Marketing deceit, corporate greed, Hollywood sleaze - it's all here, wrapped in Maxx ("two-x") Barry's hip and irreverent prose in all of its convention-be-damned-this-is not-the-way-they-told-us-to-write-in-Comp-101 glory. But between the unlikely plot and dubious predicaments, Barry flashes keen insight of human nature, marketing shtick, and the wacky culture his generation has crafted, with a delightfully treacherous cast and a hearty dish of revenge served ice cold.
So with apologies to the author: "A great book is just a great book. But the possibility of a great book - that's special." This is special. Read it.
(Final note to budding MBA students: "Syrup" IS NOT an instruction manual. Creativity and originality is admirable, but consider carefully before changing your name to a numeral or single syllable words for pet excrement).