Genre: Political
Satire
Description:
“President Trump has just been inaugurated for the second time. The
students at Upstate College are not happy. Led by one charismatic person of
color, of African, Indigenous, Pan Asian descent who is a differently-abled
Muslim-Atheist, they obliterate the college experience forever.
Wokeistan is a satire: Politics, media, corporations,
feminism and the relationships between men and women. In a world where anyone
to the right of Fidel Castro is considered a fascist, one college professor
will try to save his school.”
Author:
“Tony DiGerolamo is a New Jersey screenwriter, novelist, comic book
writer, game designer and comedian. He is best known for his work on The Simpsons
and Bart Simpson comic books. He has also been a joke writer for Politically
Incorrect with Bill Maher, a scriptwriter for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and a
blogger for Comedy Central's Indecision website.”
“Christian Beranek writes books, shoots photography, records music and
has talked about directing films one day.
Appraisal:
The premise of Wokeistan is simple. A subset of students at a
college push back against social norms. Just like books in the dystopian genre,
they take a political direction too far, down the slippery slope until things
hit rock bottom. A place where, as the book’s description says, “anyone to the
right of Fidel Castro is considered a facist.”
When I finished, I was left not knowing what to think. Part of me
loved the book. Part of me felt something more akin to hate, definitely an
emotion way to the other extreme of the spectrum. I wasn’t sure what point the
authors hoped I’d take away was, if there was one. I didn’t know if I agreed
with them or if they got it all wrong. Then I realized, if I didn’t know what
they wanted me to think, that was actually a good thing.
I finally took a deep breath. Forced myself to chill. The only
difference between this and the dystopian books that I can’t get enough of is
that this story is happening too close to home, timewise. Maybe that’s why
dystopian books work, giving us some distance from the story being presented. If
Orwell’s 1984 had been published in 1982 instead of 1949, it might have
caused readers to over react like I did.
So now I’ll remind myself of a few things. The first is that assuming
a slippery slope works to make a point in a book, but assuming it is going to
happen is a logical fallacy. The point being made, that some directions and
changes that have happened and continue to happen in society can be positive,
but taken to an extreme can be as bad as what the change is attempting to cure.
In fact, that’s essentially what happened here. As with most conflicts, the
right answer is usually closer to the middle than either extreme. Maybe I
learned something from this book after all.
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo
Issues:
A small number of proofing misses.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 50-55,000 words
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