Book Review: Vacation

Jeremy Shipp's novel starts out clever, making many observations about the masks people wear, and the nature of identity. There are other observations about culture and society, all told in a winding narrative around the vacation of a corporate peon.

Unfortunately, the story that these observation must rely upon is made weak by becoming too predictable.

The main character is nobody important. Bernard Johnson is an educator of no importance because his course is intended to depress students and stop them from thinking critically.

In this dystopian world, the rich have created perfect methods of control somehow, and the only time when people have a chance to escape this control is when they vacation for a year to become someone else, a tourist.

Not long into Bernard's vacation, he is compelled by way of an implant to leave his fellow tourists. Plunging into the jungle of a third world country, he is brought into a rebel base known as the Garden.

Here is where everything falls apart, and from then on, the brilliant observations are just trite comments that hold little weight against the actions of the characters. Everyone supposedly has a justification for what they do, but they all behave so predictably that every plot twist can be seen whole chapters in advance.

The book is depressing not because it takes place in a dystopia, but because it fails to develop any of the characters living in the world. They're all just walking onto a stage covered in heavy foliage to deliver their lines before they wander off again. Since they all talk the same as Bernard despite being from another country, there's nothing to make anyone unique. In fact, this whole story could be called one long dream sequence where every person is just another aspect of the same person.

The book is depressing because there is so much potential for a great story in this world, and much like the main character, the writer seems unwilling to venture beyond the path set rigidly before him. The path only gives the illusion of winding.

This story had a strong start, but from the first revelation, the book loses momentum until every page is a drag to finish. It might have worked as a novella if the conclusion had been in the Garden. But it drags on long after this point, making for an unsatisfying novel with nothing to offer but trite comments on the petty nature of being human.

I'm giving this book one star, though I will note that I have found many of Jeremy's short stories enjoyable. However, reading this book was like vacationing on a lake made of molasses. In Winter.