Ye gods, I finished a book!

[weewarrior]

...and yes, that is pretty damn spectacular, given that over the last two years or so, I could consider myself lucky for getting over the first few chapters of any written work before just drifting away either because of boredom or because I plainly forgot, leading to dozens of partly read volumes lingering asthmatically on my shelves. Fortunately, illness is often a good excuse to finally plow through something, and as fate would have it, that something turned out to be - a story of toy company employees, code-breaking and identity which I enjoyed a lot, and would recommend unreservedly, if it weren't for the last few chapters.

Up until that point the novel is very entertaining, both a scathing look at corporate marketing techniques and consumerism, and the fascinating backstory of our rather loopy protagonist, but then it suddenly turns so thoroughly into a sappy Disney fairytale for left-wingers, it honestly made me reconsider whether the text really was as clever and fascinating before. On the plus side, there is a crossword and a (vegan) cake recipe in the postscript, as well as the author claiming she put all her research material on marketing into recycling in the acknowledgements, so the last forty pages or so are not a complete waste.

ETA: Randomly: If Thomas Hardy had written children's books.