BOOMER1 by Daniel Torday is all about three characters who provide alternating perspectives:
Mark, a young man who seeks a job in academia, tries a stint in a band and proposes marriage – all before inadvertently sparking a revolution;
Cassie, a somewhat troubled young musician who turns down Mark’s proposal, eventually develops a successful career and a relationship with a female co-worker;
Julia – a “baby boomer” who owns the house with the basement where Mark eventually moves (yes, she’s his Mom, too).
This is generally a slow moving story of inter-generational conflict and the power of the Internet. That’s where Mark posts anti-Boomer videos and develops a following as things get complicated and violent ("retire or we'll retire you"). BOOMER1 is a provocative work, but overall, this story felt sad and perhaps even a bit tawdry to me. However, if you liked The Nix, this may appeal; Torday’s work received a starred review from Kirkus.

Cassie Black changed her name and reinvented her persona once she got to college, where she met her girlfriend Natalia and started playing bass in a band. While at a party, she meets a guy from another band, Mark Brumfeld, and they hit it off both musically and personally. After Natalia kicks Cassie out of the Pollys, she begins playing with Mark’s band, Willow Gardens, and Mark and Cassie’s relationship deepens. But when Mark proposes to Cassie in the middle of a fancy restaurant, she leaves him sitting there, sending his life into a tailspin where he eventually ends up living in his parents’ basement once again.

Mark’s belief that the Baby Boomers are causing his difficulties strengthens, and he begins issuing diatribes on YouTube against the Boomers as a whole continuing to work long after the conventional retirement age. He quickly gains a following, changes his name, and posts most of his rants on the Dark Web, where he hopes they will be untraceable. His following becomes more fired up, bent on destruction and violence, and the revolution takes on a life of its own.

Being a nominal Boomer, born towards the tail end of the era, I wanted to like this book, but it was too slow. Even revolution can be boring if the same rhetoric is repeated often enough.

Mark Brumfeld is over educated, under employed, in debt and living in his parents basement. He finds himself there after his girlfriend, Cassie, rejects his marriage proposal and his job prospects in New York dry up.

In the novel Boomer1, Mark is desperate and resentful as he launches a series of YouTube rants against aging Baby Boomers who won’t let go of their jobs so Millennials can have them. His missives touch a nerve and a movement begins that grows out of Mark’s control, eventually embroiling him with law enforcement.

The plot in Boomer1 by Daniel Torday (digital galley, St. Martin’s Press) jumps between the views of Mark, his ex-girlfriend who is finding success in new media and his mother who is suffering from hearing loss. The chapters devoted to his mother and his ex-girlfriend are the most compelling and authentic of the book and their stories alone would have made for a better novel.

Boomer1 feels like it might have been timely for a brief period, but that period has passed. Mark’s YouTube rants ring hollow in the current climate of low unemployment. And some of the more interesting and timely issues raised in the novel, such as excessive student debt and the ethics of new media are not touched on in a meaningful way.

After his career and marriage proposal go down in flames and he's left with a boatload of debt, Mark Brumfeld is forced to move into his mom's basement. He takes out his frustrations at being overeducated and underemployed by creating a Youtube series in which he blames baby boomers for all the economic woes faced by millennials. He suggests, no demands, that boomers give up their jobs or millennials will take them from them - by force if necessary. Although Mark is really just venting, a domestic terrorist group forms around his words and runs with them.

Boomer1 is told from three perspectives, Mark aka Boomer1, Cassie his exgirlfriend who has achieved success in a job he helped her find, and Mark's mother, once a '60s radical, now a suburban mom. This is a well-written, sometimes funny, often insightful look at what life is like in today's economic reality for both millennials and boomers. As such, no doubt a reader's reaction to this book will reflect to a greater or lesser degree what side of the great generational divide they reside on. It will also, no doubt, make them think and isn't that what good literary fiction is all about.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

'Boomer1' is an engrossing, generation-spanning dive into identity, relationships, family, and our chaotic world. The alternating POVs greatly enhance the narrative. And Torday masterfully balances humor and pathos, action and reflection.

It’s music that makes Cassie Black and Mark Brumfeld fall in love in New York. Together they play in a band and also share their lives, but somehow it doesn’t really fit. It is especially their professional situation that creates a lot of tension, Mark dreams of writing a novel or at least getting a lecturing position at university. When he proposes to Cassie, this is the necessary point of no return for her and they split up. Cassie is offered a job in a somehow strange start-up media company where she fact checks articles but is always unsure of what she really does. After some more failures, Mark returns to his parents’ home in Baltimore. One day, Cassie comes across a video online: her ex published a series of statements against the Baby Boomers who occupy all the good jobs and make life hard for his generation. What was initially meant as a rant due to his personal situation, ends in a violent revolution.

Daniel Torday narrates the novel “Boomer1” through the three perspectives of Cassie, Mark and Julia, Mark’s mother. This gives him the possibility to show the same scenes from different angels which sometimes also spins the way we as a reader perceive it. Even though there are many humorous and highly comical scenes, there are some underlying truths in the story which give it a lot more depth than it might seem to have on the surface.

First of all, I could highly sympathise with Cassie’s job at the media company RazorWire. She always wonders what she is doing – and actually many of her colleagues spend their working time playing computer games and watching YouTube videos. It may seem a common prejudice but reality has shown that many of those start-ups have disappeared more quickly than they were founded since they didn’t create anything at all.

I can also understand Mark’s deception and despair. Being highly qualified but having the impression of being of no use on the labour market because all positions are taken by some old people who could easily retire is just frustrating. Waiting for the life to begin is hard to endure.

Also their struggle with relationships is something that is well-known in the generation of millennials. Heterosexual as well as homosexual experiences, splitting up getting back together – they dream of their childhood when life was easy and families followed traditional patterns. They know that this is not something they will not get as easily as their parents got it. Somehow their whole life is fragile and nothing is sure anymore. What else could be the logical consequence other than a revolution? Starting it online is simply logical for them.

I really liked the novel, it is entertaining and well-written and has a noteworthy message, too.

Every generation is certain that their parents had an easier time getting good jobs or needing less formal education or requiring less money to support themselves. Every generation believes their parents and grandparents cannot understand the unique pressures posed by current events and their own too overwhelming demands. But where’s the drama in that truth? This is a tale of an over-educated man-child who moves back in with his parents after failing to succeed as an independent adult. Social media allows him to create ‘Boomer1’ and a following that blames his failures on baby boomers aka his parents and their age cohorts. His girlfriend rejects him and finds her future without him. The premise was fascinating; the tale itself wanders. It wasn’t always easy to stick with the book. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I really wanted to like this book. I thought the premise sounded very promising but I guess every once in awhile a book and a reader don’t click. This story was way too slow moving for me. I was never engaged enough with any of the characters to care about what happened to them. If you like a very slow building novel this may be for you, it just wasn’t for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Press, and Daniel Torday for the opportunity to read and review this timely book. 3.5 stars.

This book centers on the generational divide between millennials and boomers and is told in 3 different voices. Cassie is a younger millennial who left her Ohio family, changed her name, and reinvented herself in NYC. She gets hired at an emerging internet content firm. She's a bassist in a band and is in an on/off relationship with Natalie as well as Mark. Mark is a bit older - in his early 30s - also a musician. He works as a journalist but eventually loses that job. His relationship with Cassie also ends and he winds up living in the basement of his parent's house. Mark starts a revolution online blaming the boomer generation for all that is wrong - they have all the jobs that should be going to the millennials, they are materialistic, on and on. Julia is Mark's mom - she was a rebellious musician in her youth and is not sure how she wound up being a suburban wife and mother.

I loved the thought-provoking elements in this book. Being a boomer myself and having 2 millennial children, there was a lot to ponder. However, none of the characters were especially likeable and the book felt a bit slow and plodding at points. Still an interesting read.

As hard as we plan and as hard as we try, our lives are often completely different than what we planned.

Mark wants to be a successful political writer or a successful bluegrass musician, whichever comes first. Cassie is a bassist in a all-female punk band, who meets Mark at at party. They begin a relationship that is founded on music...and not much else. Mark doesn't find the success or the love that he thinks he deserves and moves home with his parents. His anger leads to a series of missives posted on the internet and become a rallying cry for the others stuck in the same positions. It's a cry for the rewards without the work.

This is the story of two generations - Baby Boomers and Millennials. Of the people who worked for everything and the people who think they deserve everything. This is such a timely book, a look at our current society, job market, world...it's fabulous.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Boomer1 is partly narrated by Mark, a deeply in debt thirty-something year old, who feels he deserves to have the career and money he wants and since he can't have that, he decides to incite a revolution to make Baby Boomers give up their jobs, to those younger than them. Actually, Mark is so unmotivated to achieve anything, that the incitement happens despite himself. He writes the words and then other people living off their parents, in their basements, take up the cause and make it bigger.

Another narrator is Cassie, Mark's ex girlfriend who is blindsided by his marriage proposal, complete with a $14,000 ring, that threw Mark deeper into debt. Cassie works hard, doesn't spend time feeling sorry for herself despite her romantic relationships not always going her way and being dumped from a band. Cassie is creative and makes the most of her creativity, flourishing as Mark flounders. Her refusal to marry Mark is cited as one of his reasons for his rebellion.

I went from thinking this was a three star book for me, to it turning into a four star book, by the end. Being a person who does not read music or make music, some of the very long thoughts and sentences by the three narrators, on their feelings about music, really bogged down the book for me. But later in the book, I began to really enjoy the narration of Julia, the mom of Mark. I couldn't relate to her younger self but I was drawn to her older self, as she struggled with deafness and the hurtful and destructive words and acts of her son (despite not being deaf or having children myself).

The other part of the book that I had my doubts about was that I wasn't sure if the book was going to take Mark's case up and run with it. I didn't see how it could be turned into the type of crusade that he was after, but to my delight, it was treated as it would be treated in real life. I won't say what happens to Mark (which is a non event...the very thing that Mark deserves). Mark doesn't even get a voice in the last part of the book, which is also the appropriate way to treat him, in my opinion.

I'm glad I read the book and will read more books by Daniel Torday. Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

Received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback.

A Brooklyn-dwelling, PhD holding, mandolin playing hipster is overeducated, underemployed, and deeply in debt. When his girlfriend-slash-bandmate rejects his marriage proposal, the beleaguered millennial has no choice in the post-recession world but to move back into his mom's basement. There, he adopts the moniker boomer1, make a series of youtube videos decrying Baby Boomers and their hold on the nation's jobs and wealth. The videos go viral, inspire copycats, and soon a loose network of millennial revolutionaries are committing "acts of generational terrorism." These acts start out harmless, but soon threats of violence grow stronger, and our hero finds himself in way over his thinning head.

And yet, it should have been better than it sounds.

The book is at times both realistic and batshit insane. The problems that Mark, the protagonist, faces are very real, but at the same time he is kind of a schmuck and his situation is a direct result of his own poor choices (though he would never admit it). And the anarchic "terrorism" is crazy enough that you could picture people doing it. However, about two-thirds of the book is told from the POV of Cassie, the ex-girlfriend, and Julia, his mother. Julia's chapters are weak and just suck the air out of the story. Cassie's chapters are more interesting, however he epilogue takes up what should be the "climax" of the book.

It's frustrating because I really wanted to like this book. And like I said, there was plenty to like about it. In fact, it would probably be 3.5 if I could give half stars. But there is certainly some wasted potential here.

I suspect millennials will like this more than other generations. I just wanted to tell Mark to grow up and get over himself. The millennials are not the first generation to resent the older ones- but they have more platforms to vent to everyone, including in this novel which I frankly found annoying. Mark's had lot of privilege so his arguments, to me at least, were quite hollow. There are a lot of 30 somethings out there who don't have Phds or bands or any of this, they have jobs and families and well, I DNF. I did like Cassie. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

3+ stars

What to say about Boomer1? The story focuses on the apparent generational divide between baby boomers and millennials. Mark has tried to make it as an academic and journalist in New York, but he’s ended up back in his parents’ basement in the Midwest. He reinvents himself as a raging millennial, posting video diatribes about how it’s time for baby boomers to cede their place to millennials, ending each diatribe with “boom boom”. Meanwhile, Mark’s ex-girlfriend Cassie is climbing the ranks of a new media company and his mother is becoming an inward looking recluse as her hearing deteriorates. I thought Boomer1 was well written and it kept me reading, but I ended up feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It felt like a polemic but I’m not sure what the lesson was. I know I wasn’t necessarily meant to warm up to these characters, but I found myself not caring for them much at all. And the end was odd. Something big happens but we never circle back to get Mark’s perspective. Or maybe that’s the point. Who knows! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

I was born at the very end of the baby boomer years, so I’m thinking I am not quite the right audience for Daniel Torday’s newest novel. The story is told through the viewpoints of three characters and I never felt a connection with any of them.

The story opened with Cassie, who added the f-word to nearly every sentence out of her mouth. I’ve no problem with profanity in general, but felt it was often gratuitous. Then there is Cassie’s behavior. She seems to have no regard for her intimate relationships or other people’s feelings.

Mark’s portion consisted mainly of his whining over his lack of a high-paying job. His anger at older workers who didn’t retire on time (in his opinion) was off-putting. It wasn’t long before I began skimming his portions of the story.

Then there is Julia, Mark’s mother. We learn quite a bit about her past, but I never felt like she added much to the story. I did enjoy reading about her fiddle collection and her perspective on Mark’s troubles.

This one just didn’t keep me engaged. I guess I was expecting more music and less opinions on economics. Maybe millennials will enjoy this book more than readers from the baby boom generation.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read and review an advance copy and give my honest review.

This book just wasn't for me - perhaps since I'm not a millenial or a baby boomer - The author does have an excellent writing style -i think its just a matter of some books aren't for some people - I thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

This was offered to me by St. Martins Press, and I thank them for the opportunity.

So, I can tell you this story is about two young adults, Cassie from Ohio who changed her name before moving to New York City, and Mark, who as a side job plays in a band with Cassie and loves her very much. Cassie won't marry him, because she really prefers women, although Mark is clueless. They both have poorly paying day jobs and are barely subsisting, and Mark blames his lack of success on the Baby Boomer generation as a whole, because none of them will retire like they're expected to so that Mark can have a crack at their high-paying jobs. The more Mark thinks about this, in fact, the more convinced he is that this is the source of all his problems, and he is quite angry. He ends up unemployed, living in his parents' basement, and becomes an on-line celebrity called Boomer1 with some crazy, batshit ideas about how to get Boomers to retire or die.

I enjoyed Cassie immensely, who by the way becomes quite a successful executive in the techy field (oh, the irony). But Julia (Mark's mom) seemed an afterthought who contributed little to the story. And Mark was just an idiot of epic proportions whose chapters I skimmed over because they were just... plain... frustrating.

I think this was satire but not very funny, in my personal opinion, and also was, IMO, utter nonsense. Let's just say I am probably not the target audience for this one and perhaps I didn't get it?

I had trouble getting into this book but once in, I really enjoyed it. As one of the Baby Boomer generation, I tired of the "blame-game" that Mark raged about. We grew up with a work ethic and deserved the jobs we got based on merit. We retire when we are able to (fortunately I am)! So I had to re-adjust my thinking a little to see through his eyes. I have children his age so I understand the frustration of being over-educated and unable to find suitable employment. I also understand the frustration at not knowing whether Social Security will be around. We worry about that too. I did like the three different perspectives--from Mark, Cassie, and Mark's mother Julia. There are important concepts addressed by Torday and we would be wise to take heed as the digital age moves at the speed of light. Things we once took for granted may not be there in the future. This is a relevant and poignant read!

Boomer1 is contemporary, baby boomers growing up, playing music. Hearing, not being heard, not hearing.

While I appreciate that this novel is timely and relevant, it simply didn't resonate with me. I am in between the millennial and baby boomer generations, and I can see both sides of the issue. Boomers are working past the retirement age, hanging on to jobs the younger generations have been working toward.

The novel started out strong and I was intrigued, however by the half way point, I just didn't care too much. The writing throughout is sharp and witty, but I just couldn't rally any emotional energy for Mark and Cassie. The only character I enjoyed is Julia, whose sacrifices for her family (and some resentment because of them) felt more realistic than the rest of the story.