An interesting quick read that's perfect for fans of gritty crime fiction and a taste for unrealistic situations that's very action/thriller/crime movie-esque.

Business is a really different book. I don’t think I would have called it a “coming of age” book. Being bored because you already got your degree in something that wasn’t marketable is a little old for that. Instead, I see it as a story told by one of your friends. You know the one who just tells never ending stories that get more and more crazy as you go? Like they meet someone looking for a new job and end up running all over the country. If you don’t have one of those….I’m not sure if you are lucky or unlucky. Sometimes you start to zone out and sometimes you are thoroughly entertained. That was this book.

Reader, he lost me. I know this is meant to be funny but it just wasn't, at least to me. . Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. I gave up at the 25 percent mark.

To be honest, this was unlike any novel I have read before and I didn't know quite what to make of it at first. The main character is a young man who ditches his dead end job writing greeting cards to work for a shady business man. The world of con artists, blackmailers, Russian hit men and drugs didn't really appeal to me. However, I did start to enjoy the novel from about half way through, when the main character takes off on a bizarre road trip through America, eventually ending up on a farm belonging to a buddhist monk. It has a streak of dark sardonic humour running through it and paints a very visual picture of the action that I could see working well as a movie.

This has been called a "coming of age" novel, but the narrator seems to self aware at the beginning, and his experiences shape him rather than bring him to a higher awareness. Meyboom has a background in film, and there was much description that came across as cinematic, plus a cast of thousands. Very visual, very funny, a promising debut. (less)

"Business" is a semi-dark, semi-comic, semi-serious coming-of-age odyssey that reminded me, perhaps inaccurately, of Thomas Pynchon. This debut novel's malleable hero ditches a no-hope writing job for apprenticeship with a flamboyant wheeler and dealer running "the Business." Their outrageous edge-of-capitalism projects slide into chaos, and our hero finds himself driving across America on a surreal (but strangely normalised) road trip that brings together a captivating immigrant, fearsome gangsters, and PTSD cultists. What began as a satire on voracious capitalism morphs into a tale of existential yearning and learning. The author's style is sharp and mordant, the world is drawn starkly, and the dialogue crackles. Business is a dislocating yet brisk journey across one fractured tangent of modern life, and much can be expected of J.P. Meyboom's future novels.

I'm sorry but when the main character started to talk with Leonard Bernstein, I thought: this is not a book for me.

This is one of those books where you feel kind of bad for finding it so funny.. Touching on taboos and challenging the reader to find humour in dark places, this book is something different. The story itself has a strong plot love, the characters are incredible and it is just so funny. Well worth reading for those who want a laugh which makes them think...