What do you think?
Rate this book
The Bill
One part political thriller, one part rollicking satire and one part insightful examination of today's culture, Marietta Rogers marvelous first novel, The Bill, engages readers on intellectual and emotional levels. Humorous, gritty and fearless, the novel is as rewarding as it is challenging. The story and its characters
stay with you long after you've finished reading The Bill.
stay with you long after you've finished reading The Bill.
199 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2014
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 28, 2015
Marietta Rodgers is one of the funniest people I follow on Twitter. She’s a political thinker. In one of my favorite tweets of hers, she says, “Everyone knows it was David Hasselhoff's Christmas album that brought the Berlin wall down.” She’s hysterical and she has a unique outlook on the world. She’s like Jon Stewart. At the same time, she is funny and also wickedly insightful about politics.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is this: "In the meantime, though, to avoid huge medical costs, I strongly urge you not to get sick."
Her book The Bill is a skewering account of the current legislative impasse in the U.S.
“Oppressors have a short shelf life,” says one of the characters. Representative Joe Herkiezen is a monster, an unfeeling, self-seeking bureaucrat. He’s reprehensible and we know it. He’s only focused on re-election and ratings. (Btw, the name of the political polling site is called PollTroll. Ha.)
With her creation of the “opulent class” and the “herd,” Rodgers explores the gulf between social and economic classes, particularly through the lives of Rep. Joe and the slaughterhouse workers from the herd ghetto.
It’s a tough book, unrelenting, but necessary. It feels like a modern-day morality tale, especially with characters named “Chance” and “Hope” and it reminded me of Chaucer and Jonathan Swift and the ancient Greeks. “Even the most well-intentioned can suffer from hubris…”
The book is a conversation, almost a dialogue, on how a bill will come to pass: "a bill is like a soldier fighting in a world war; it has a slim chance of making it all the way through without getting killed."
In the book, the particular bill is called “The Hunger Relief Act.” If you’re familiar with literary criticism, Rodgers would have most certainly written from a Marxist viewpoint. In this book, she has written a thoughtful, searing commentary on our government, and I look forward to more of her work.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is this: "In the meantime, though, to avoid huge medical costs, I strongly urge you not to get sick."
Her book The Bill is a skewering account of the current legislative impasse in the U.S.
“Oppressors have a short shelf life,” says one of the characters. Representative Joe Herkiezen is a monster, an unfeeling, self-seeking bureaucrat. He’s reprehensible and we know it. He’s only focused on re-election and ratings. (Btw, the name of the political polling site is called PollTroll. Ha.)
With her creation of the “opulent class” and the “herd,” Rodgers explores the gulf between social and economic classes, particularly through the lives of Rep. Joe and the slaughterhouse workers from the herd ghetto.
It’s a tough book, unrelenting, but necessary. It feels like a modern-day morality tale, especially with characters named “Chance” and “Hope” and it reminded me of Chaucer and Jonathan Swift and the ancient Greeks. “Even the most well-intentioned can suffer from hubris…”
The book is a conversation, almost a dialogue, on how a bill will come to pass: "a bill is like a soldier fighting in a world war; it has a slim chance of making it all the way through without getting killed."
In the book, the particular bill is called “The Hunger Relief Act.” If you’re familiar with literary criticism, Rodgers would have most certainly written from a Marxist viewpoint. In this book, she has written a thoughtful, searing commentary on our government, and I look forward to more of her work.
July 6, 2015
A sharp and biting satire of our current political and cultural landscape. Set in an alternate reality in a dystopian, near future, Rodgers brutally skewers our government system bought and sold by corporate interests. This is a valuable and grim critique of our society laced with heavy irony in a dark but feasible future world.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews