Through our pain, through all the lies; we will walk, walk reborn: hope never dies. Let’s gun the engines of our Pontiac Firebird TransAms and ride off into Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer.
Synopsis:
This mystery thriller reunites Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama for a political mashup full of suspense, intrigue, and laugh out loud bromance.
Vice President Joe Biden is fresh out of the Obama White House and feeling adrift when his favorite railroad conductor dies in a suspicious accident, leaving behind an ailing wife and a trail of clues. To unravel the mystery, “Amtrak Joe” re-teams with the only man he’s ever fully trusted—the 44th president of the United States. Together they’ll plumb the darkest corners of Delaware, traveling from cheap motels to biker bars and beyond, as they uncover the sinister forces advancing America’s opioid epidemic.
Part noir thriller and part bromance novel, Hope Never Dies is essentially the first published work of Obama/Biden fanfiction—and a cathartic read for anyone distressed by the current state of affairs.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
When I first saw Hope Never Dies on Goodreads, I thought it looked pretty stupid, to be honest. Like a trend-chaser trying to jump onto an old meme and squeeze a little bit of value from it before it’s completely driven into the ground. In this case, the meme the book’s trying to capitalize on is the depiction of Joe Biden on sites like The Onion and Know Your Meme.
But just because an idea works for one short satirical article or a poorly photoshopped picture that makes you chuckle for a moment doesn’t mean that it can sustain a whole novel, and to me it seemed like the book’s premise was a weak joke that would wear real thing, real fast. Even so, I decided to give it a chance. You never know, right?
I was disappointed but not surprised to discover that my reservations were correct: I didn’t find the premise very funny for very long. Oh, it got a few chuckles from me in places, and there were even a couple of moments that actually managed to be genuinely poignant, on the whole it came off as a one-joke premise that just couldn’t sustain my interest.
Final Rating: 2/5
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