Well written, interesting. ( )

I think this book would be a good one to read after reading Philip Roth's American Pastoral. It is a post 911, post Obama story of modern left revolutionaries and the aftermath of their actions. I think it was well done and an interesting read. I would be curious to read these characters in a few years time. ( )

Well, this is definitely going on the list of books I would never read if I didn't have to. Some highlights:
1) multiple 1st person POV -- ugh. Just, ugh.
2) female characters are all props -- you wouldn't think this would be possible when one of the protagonists is female, but she manages to have absolutely no identity that doesn't derive from a man; it would be an impressive feat if it weren't so maddening.
3) plot makes NO LOGICAL SENSE -- especially the "romance" bits.
4) infodumps boring, tangential details, then glosses over things that might have been interesting.

Basically: I recommend this book to NO ONE EVER. The only good part was the title. ARGH. ( )

This book made me go "Wow, I never thought of things that way." Depending on circumstances that could be me or someone I know and I totally get it. Things aren't always what they seem. This is a fast paced thriller that makes you look at the label terrorist in a whole different context. ( )

Summary: Aidan Cole is a thirty-something media blogger, spending his days moving through the hipper-than-thou scene of disaffected New Yorkers. The city is slowly returning to normal after a bombing of a downtown office building, when Aidan receives an anonymous e-mail with a picture of a pretty young woman and the message "This is Paige Roderick. She's the one responsible." Aidan knows he should call the police, but instead he sets out to investigate on his own. As he learns more and more, it seems like he understands less and less: if the e-mail is real, and not some elaborate hoax, why would this average American woman be involved in acts of terrorism? And what's going to happen to her - and him - if he gets involved?

Review: This book was an intensely slow start for me. I struggled to get to page 60, and at that point, I hated both of the main characters, and still had no clear idea where the plot was going. I have extraordinarily limited patience when it comes to reading about hard-partying hipster urbanites, and I was more than ready to abandon the book if it meant not having to spend any more time with them. I decided to give the book until page 100, and if I still wasn't interested, then I'd give it up as a lost cause. However, when I picked the book up the next night, the plot finally got kick-started, and while I still didn't like the characters much, I was pulled into their story, and I read straight through to the end of the book, barely even moving except to turn pages. I'm still not sure that I even liked the story, exactly, but it sure as hell was crazy-compelling.

Part of the reason that I had a problem connecting with this book was its hyper-realism. I'm normally an escapist reader, and American Subversive is the polar opposite of escapism: it's brutally critical of the modern world, and it demands that its readers wake up and take a good hard look at themselves and at our society, and a lot of what it had to say was almost uncomfortably insightful. However, the brutal criticism was pretty unrelenting. Goodwillie's scathingly critical of the current state of things, and scathingly critical of those who don't try to change the current state of things, but also scathingly critical of the ways in which everyone in this book *does* try to change the current state of things.

It's a book that seems to demand something of its readers, but I'll be damned if I could figure out what exactly that something was, leaving me with a feeling like I'd just sat through a scolding I wasn't sure that I deserved. So, overall, it was an (eventually) compelling read, and an interesting change from my beaten path, but I came out the other side not feeling entirely edified or particularly hopeful. On technical grounds, it's an impressive debut novel, it just didn't work so well for me. 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: People who like modern (especially post-9/11) fiction or political thrillers more than I do may have an easier time of this than I did. ( )