Pharmacology by Christopher Herz

1993. San Francisco. The digital and pharmaceutical industries are booming. They're looking for the young, the hip, and those on the counterculture fringe to be both the face and consumer of their new world order. Recruited by an advertising agency focused on targeting a new drug to her own age demographic, Sarah Striker is grateful for the steady income, but begins to question the side effects of the products she's pushing.Sarah begins publishing an underground 'Zine to expose the secrets behind the pharmaceutical industry's aims. Fulfilled by her quest to spread the truth, her new life seems to be working out perfectly-until she realizes that she herself is perilously close to becoming a victim of this new corporate world.A kinetic, hyper-stylized jolt of pure energy, Herz delivers a strong follow up to his debut novel, The Last Block in Harlem. Full of vibrant characters and razor-sharp dialogue, Pharmacology captures the voice of the Internet generation with style, heart, and soul.

This is another book where the description on the back is misleading. It sounds like a great story from the synopsis, when in reality is not great at all.

The biggest flaw of Pharmacology is the main character Sarah. I understand giving a character a unique voice to help the story, it help a lot when a book is told in first person. Sarah's voice, however, was annoying. Nearly every sentence leaves out the leading pronoun. Here is a quote from the book to give you an idea.

"Lived in that house about a year. Moved in six months after I'd landed in the city. Left after they started stealing my socks."

I can understand a few lines being like this. Many people talk like that, including myself, from time to time. This was an entire book of these types of sentences.

The second biggest flaw is the story line. Like I said before, the synopsis makes it sound like a great story, but it took half the book to even get to that part. Most of the book is a map of San Francisco and a look into the lives of junkies in the early 90's.

There were a few entertaining parts. I found it interesting to read about the pharmaceutical companies and the development of disorders that are all too common in life now. If only there were more of that, this would have been a much better book.

I cannot say I enjoyed this book at all.

1.5 out of 5 stars