The Great American Boogaloo

After seeing Don’t Look Up I felt like this book was the perfect next step in that vein… which is a little to close to the reality we are living as well so wasn’t sure if it should be under fiction or non-fiction. It was a great story with lots of moving parts giving a useful view of the politics from many different aspects in society. Even with the large range of characters you still felt invested in them and wanted to follow on to see how they would all collide at the end. I haven’t read the previous book in this universe but felt that didn’t matter but will be one I will be picking up to see the history of the characters. Perfect storyline for the world we are living in today.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Farrago for an advance copy of The Great American Boogaloo, the second novel to feature Michigan based militias.

Big Bruddah Watts runs a militia in Michigan and having missed the last uprising he’s determined to save America from a ban on cows due to the harmful effects of their methane emissions on the climate by the new female president. He is working with “Colonel” Tuttle second in command at Silver Eagle, the world’s largest private security company and he wants to bring down the president and install Silver Eagle’s CEO as a puppet president.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Great American Boogaloo, which basically takes American right wing talking points and turns them into farce. It didn’t make laugh out loud continuously, but it has its moments.

One word of warning for the unwary. This novel requires a certain understanding of the mindset and environment, otherwise the reader will write it off as stupid and unbelievable and unfortunately that is not the case as a look at American news will confirm.

I like the author’s easy style and I like the way he sews together a series of events to make an unappetising whole, in terms of characterisation and intentions, not the novel, which is a fun read. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the good guys win and the baddies get their comeuppance, because the novel is all about how it happens and contains some crackers.

The novel is told from various points of view, every one a thread in the narrative, and that’s the only fault I find in the novel. The author has a knack of drawing the reader into each narrative so it’s a bit annoying that it then switches to another just as the current one gets interesting. Still, I don’t see how he could do it differently and it definitely makes the reader want to continue.

The Great American Boogaloo is a good read that I can recommend.

Hilarious & depressing at the same time, this is a fictional journey into the looniest nightmare America has become after 5 years of Trump's moronic nothingness.
Idiots, weirdos & lots of brainless Yankees run aimlessly within a plot that zigzags all over the place and manages to prove by the end that the United States of America has totally gone to the dogs!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Farrago for this weird ARC

I enjoyed The Great American Boogaloo it's a smart, funny and very tongue in cheek parody of the Trumpian far right, and skewers them very well.

I do think that sometimes the characters can be a little too caricatured and not nuanced enough, while I appreciate that's the style, it brings you out of the book too much.

But overall, it was a quick, enjoyable read.

The Great American Boogaloo is set in a version of our world where the President of the United States is a woman... and she's determined to ban cows in order to help mitigate climate change. A red-meat loving militia man in Michigan named "Big Bruddah" is determined to take her down.

The genius of this book is that it's clever and funny but also has quite an edge to it, because the premise is not far from the realm of possibility. It has a lot of that, "haha... oh no" kind of dark humor to it.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has an interest in politics or current events.

Bo “Big Bruddah” Watts, member of the RedSky Brigade militia, is assembling a team to fight together for freedom. It seems the female, liberal President (according to Big Bruddah), is all about climate change, taxes to coddle criminals and gun control. The rumor is she’s about to move cattle over the border and ban beef. These right-wing militia aren’t about to have their hamburgers taken out of their mouths, so along with Wilbur Tuttle who runs Silver Eagle Security, the plan, aka “The Great American Boogaloo,” is to kidnap the President’s daughter and launch a coup in Tampa, Florida.

Michigan white, male militia extremists and a liberal female president caricatures based on fairly current news? This very funny book pits the right-wing conservatives vs. the left-wing liberals, starting with “Operation Cheesus,” a counter-plot for Michigan to invade Wisconsin about stolen cheese recipes. The right-wing conspiracy theory that prairie dogs carrying monkey-pox were sent to Michigan to sicken political leaders meant Wisconsin had to be stopped. The Great American Boogaloo is a clever satire, a biting take on a certain presidency, a man who divided political parties more than any other president in history and caused the militia attack on the Capitol in 2021.

I’d like to thank NetGalley, Paul Flower, and Farrago Books for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A very funny, smart, and gripping political satire book that kept me reading.
I liked the humour, the characters, and had a lot of fun. There's more than simple fun and it's a good depiction of the current situation.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I had quite a time getting into this book but once i did it was quite the page turner. I especially loved the writing and how the author tries to simplify the plot so even when you're trying to figure it out. You're in the know and how he incorporated today's affair into the story
It was an amazing read and I'm happy i didn't DNF it after the first few chapters otherwise i would have missed this gem.

ARC read

Where do I even start with this book?

The current (lady) president is trying to fight climate crisis and right-wing Americans are not happy about her methods.

There are parts that seem deadly serious and like I'm reading sections of the news or at least possible near-future news and other parts were so crazy and silly

This book did make me laugh out loud and read out sections to my husband but honestly, I think he is more the target audience for this book than I am. I enjoyed it a lot but he is a much bigger fan of politics and right-wing American media. I'm also worried that I felt out of place reading this because I'm the opposite politically. I requested this book because I wanted to understand the opposite side of things and I thought satire would be the gentlest way to ease myself in. I'm not sure if I did learn anything but I had a lot of fun trying 😁