Mania

A Novel

De: Lionel Shriver

Narrado por: Abby Craden

Mania has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Thoroughly enjoyed this

Shriver envisions a world created by Ellsworth Monkton Toohey and it’s every bit as incompetent and frightening as one could imagine.

Really smart thoughts and writing. I was very impressed by the authors take.

This was really a brilliant book with great observations and better yet hallucination on those observations. This definitely reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984.

Clever premise, tortured execution.

Oddly it was a bad review of the book that piqued my curiosity. The reviewer, writing in the New York Times, expressed an admiration for Shriver's work generally but felt that the symbolisms and metaphors in Mania stretched both patience and credulity. I loved the premise though: intelligence has been outlawed. There are numerous clever sentences in the book, but the puns, plays in words, and satirical revisions of recent history are often too obvious or too much of a stretch. The narrator is unlikable, but not "likable in her unlikability." The voice actress hired for the audio does a great job, but by the end I was treating finishing the book as an assignment rather than a pleasure. Before I go on to read something actually intelligent, I'm going to treat myself to something innocuously stupid - a Graphic Novel maybe.

Agree with NY Times

Another reviewer put it perfectly. Read review titled Clever Premise, Tortured Execution. Tedious and frustrating.

LS’s scathing social commentary.

Lionel Shriver is incredibly smart. What better way to point out blatant (practically) to-the-minute conformity, than in a snack-like book that pokes fun while illuminating the lasting harms caused by group think. Listening was like eating (insert your favorite unstoppable snack) while talking with a friend who’s shiny mind gets yours, and you’re b*tching about the state of world, and you can’t help but laugh at it all.