A review by samusiamus
Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
2.0
I did not really enjoy this book although the premise was interesting to me. I read it for a "sci fi and nature/ecology" class. I liked the idea of the west side becoming this separate country that wanted to achieve amazing, earth-preserving accomplishments and save the world one upcycle at a time. But the narrator is not likable enough for me to put up with his strange musings that follow his editorial reports. The whole book is written in journal format interspersed with pages of what is a column for a newspaper in the rest of the USA.
There was nothing about the character that was redeeming, he was very self-important and kind of an asshole. Not that every book's main character needs to be perfect, but there has to be something there to make me want to keep reading. Even though I did find all the explanations of how Ecotopia conducted business, and recycled water, etc, it was just too much like a research journal to keep my attention. They could probably make a movie from it that sums everything up in a more dynamic way, but this book was a tough read. I am hesitant to say I read the whole thing, because in order to read enough of it to keep up with class discussions I ended up skipping a lot of pages--which didn't seem to harm my understanding of much of the book.
The ending was interesting, to say the least, and didn't quite go the way I expected which is good! I would not read it again though lol
There was nothing about the character that was redeeming, he was very self-important and kind of an asshole. Not that every book's main character needs to be perfect, but there has to be something there to make me want to keep reading. Even though I did find all the explanations of how Ecotopia conducted business, and recycled water, etc, it was just too much like a research journal to keep my attention. They could probably make a movie from it that sums everything up in a more dynamic way, but this book was a tough read. I am hesitant to say I read the whole thing, because in order to read enough of it to keep up with class discussions I ended up skipping a lot of pages--which didn't seem to harm my understanding of much of the book.
The ending was interesting, to say the least, and didn't quite go the way I expected which is good! I would not read it again though lol