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I was really looking forward to this book coming out, but it ended up being a big letdown. I first read the blurb and was hoping for something like Fantasticland. Instead, I got something more like Clown in a Cornfield, that took itself too seriously and got rid of the fun .

The first problem is way too many characters and almost all of them have POV sections in the story. I didn't go back and count, but there are at least 14 viewpoint characters in this book. It was a pain keeping track of who was who and the author would switch POV with no warning, so I had to re-read multiple sections when I got lost to figure out who had POV and who the hell they were. Since the book is just under 250 pages, character development gets skipped in favor of caricatures and stereotypes.

Second, the author gets pretty heavy handed with the social commentary. I'm shocked no one in this book uttered the phrase "okay, boomer." Most of the characters felt like they would be right at home on Reddit in subs like /r/antiwork or /r/teenagers. Sure they're supposed to be in their 20's but they're definitely written as teenagers. It felt like the author was trying to make a point about how boomers ruined everything for the younger generations, but then added a bunch of characters from said younger generation and wrote them to be the entitled and lazy people that senior citizens make Facebook memes about.

For me, the final straw was the lack of anything resembling an ending. The book just sort of stops in the middle of the action. I'm not a fan of ambiguous endings, but I can live with them when they're well done. This was not one of those. It isn't really even fair to call it ambiguous; it's more like the author got a wrist cramp and just said "screw it, close enough" and called it a day. So not only did the book skip what would have been the best part of the ending, what they kept didn't make a lot of sense. Apparently right before the "climax" of the book, our heroes signaled for a time out and all action stopped in order to speechify at the very end. It was like a movie where they show the bomb counting down the last 5 seconds, but 20 minutes worth of movie takes place in those 5 seconds. Our heroes talk and talk and right before the big payoff, the book ends. I was still planning on giving this 3 stars right up to the last few pages.

This is another case of good concept, but poor execution. Had the author limited the book to two or three viewpoint characters, spent more time on development of the important characters, and actually wrote a complete ending this could have been a decent read. I didn't hate it, but can't say I really liked it either.