Stop. You'll wind up wanting your 2 and a half hours back. Clarie Fallon unleashes a scathing review in her "Sean Penn The Novelist Must Be Stopped" review at HuffPost, and does a much better job than I in deconstructing the novel. The review is not long but, if you want to skip it, is telling summed up using a partial quote from the work in the last line.
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This is a hard book to review. On one hand, the writing itself - beautiful use of alliteration, the vocabulary, the pacing - was great. I found myself wanting to rewind several passages just because I loved the way they sounded.

But there was too much on the other hand to make it an enjoyable experience. I struggled to finish this two-hour long audio book. First and foremost is Sean Penn's narration. I expected to be swept up in the story right away. I mean, Penn is a world-class actor who wrote the book he's reading. Who could have done it better? Unfortunately, he mostly just droned on in a monotone that couldn't stop me from zoning out regularly.

The voice of the computer breaking in numerous times in each section to provide what amounted to info dumps - even if they were brief - was annoying, to say the least.

Overall, I didn't care a bit about what was going on and by the time we got to the parts about Drumph and the election, I was counting the minutes until the book was over.

But it's another book toward my 2019 goal and only two hours wasted.
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This is a book one must listen to, and the only possible reader is Sean Penn. At first I was lost and felt like I was wading through treacle but then I realized. This book is the harbinger of the world as we will know it through Trump. Don't open the door to journalists. Don't think. Keep to yourself, and keep your mallet holstered. ( )

A rollicking, absurd, dark, disturbing, tale of a guy who does stuff. That stuff ranges from espionage to annoying the neighbors. Is Bob a regular genius? Is he brilliant observer of American culture and politics? is he nuts? You be the judge. This is the kind of novella that will likely be seen as weird or brilliant. I am leaning toward brilliant. ( )