A review by ergative
A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

5.0

This was just an outstanding book. The story itself is so bonkers, and the author leans into the bonkersness of it with full knowledge of how bonkers it is, and exploits that with a delightful consciousness of the farce at his fingertips. The prose style is superb, especially his ability to be mocking where necessary--repeated mentions of the sweet taste of freedom in the air whenever the libertarians are doing something dumb is a very nice motif--but sympathetic when the people he's discussing deserve sympathy. There's a lovely sequence where an elderly, disabled woman is making a new life for herself, told from the perspective of the ecosystem of mites and microbes collecting in the dust on her front doorknob. And there is my absolute favorite phrase, 'a cat-colored cat', which just cracks me up for no reason I can figure out, except for the fact that it was hilarious. If this fellow ever writes another book, I may well pre-order it, regardless of the topic, just for the pleasure of reading his prose again.