Synopsis: When ten-year-old Dakota becomes bored sitting next to his mother on a park bench, he drifts off and falls into a dream in which he follows a squirrel down a game of hopscotch until he finds himself in a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures.
The satirical tale plays with many themes characteristic of America and its corporate culture as seen through the expert eyes of a child, giving the story popularity with adults as well as children. From a rudimentary perspective, the novella is about the trials and tribulations of growing up, or overweight, or old. But from another more complex one, it concerns ridiculous points of sharp humor, such as the American Dream, the rat race, racism in the workplace, the corporate ladder and hierarchy, office romance, an unhealthy love affair with body image, the obsession with prescription medication, the work and coffee culture, the constant fear of losing one’s job, the importance of golf in career success, happy hour and team-building exercises, age discrimination, and the diversity of dialect found in the United States.
To define the charm of the Dakota book—with those wonderful eccentric characters the Greenback Squirrel, the White Mouse, the Black Rat, the Bigwig, the Chairman, the Big Boss, the Westchester Whelp, the 800-pound Gorilla, etc.—as merely an adolescent arousal would convey a lack of proper understanding, for it really comprises a satire on language, a corporate allegory, a reflection of contemporary history, and a parody of twenty-first-century children’s literature.
First publication: 23th December 2019
Publisher: Mare Press
I don’t like reviewing a book I’ve rated with less than 3 stars because I have to expose why and what I didn’t like about the said book and honestly, it makes me feel really bad. But this book was sent to me by the author himself in exchange for an honest review, so that’s what I have to do.
I planned to read Dakota and the American Dream in one day because it only has 150 pages, that’s why I thought it was obtainable, even so it ended up taking me the whole day to read it. While reading it I felt like the words were piling up, like they didn’t have space to breathe. I think it was because while I was still trying to understand the last sentence I’d read I was already reading the next, because there are a lot of short sentences, commas and periods. Also the dialogues are not really well separated from the rest of the paragraph, what made me feel anxious and lost at times.
I was going to talk about all the subjects this book criticizes and exposes, but they’re all in the synopsis so I won’t be repetitive. I’ll only say that you have to be a master in the art of irony and sarcasm to truly understand the author’s point. Because I’m not and there were parts in the book where I felt that he was exalting these matters more than criticizing them. I had to remind myself more than once through the book that what the story was telling was actually a parody of the occidental society, specifically the American.
In the “Acknowledgements” the author says “It was a surprisingly short journey–less than a year–from the beginning of the first manuscript to publication of the last”. Well, I think that’s the reason why I found the whole story a bit messy. I think that any book should follow a process of more than a year. Apart from the time it takes to write it, I believe that when you finish it you should save it a whole year –or at least the sufficient time to “forget” a bit about it– and after that time grab it and read it, to be able to be critic with yourself, your writing and the story you’ve written, to make sure that what you were trying to tell is achieved and makes sense. And in my opinion, this book doesn’t.
Now you may wonder: then, why did you give it two stars if you didn’t enjoy it? Well, because I think that the idea itself has a great potential, that if the book was revised and maybe some parts were rewritten, it would be an outstanding one, apt for children as well as adults, just like The Little Prince. But the story I read tries to be like that and honestly, if I had children I don’t think I would let them read it.
About the author: Sameer Garach was born in Houston in 1986 and earned a BA in Mathematics with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. During graduate studies in quantitative finance, he developed a passion for writing and subsequently wrote his first novel, The Bull Option, a unique and cunning financial thriller that moves at a breakneck pace. He later went on to write Dakota and the American Dream, a charming and hilarious contemporary satire that entertains adults as well as children.
Genre: retelling, middle-grade, fantasy, satire.
Thank you, Chiara! It really does because as I say, it makes you feel bad, especially if the book was given to you by the author.
i love your reviews so much! i know how it feels to write a review about a book you didn't like, it really sucks.