For as many people who have expressed that World-Mart has touched them in a positive way, just as many people have expressed anger—and even insinuated some kind of underlying political agenda—in response to the novel.  Take, for example, this review:

What a load of propaganda. This book is nothing more than the authors[sic] rant/social commentary on how she hates success[sic] for a business she disagrees with, loathing of America, and her undying love for the global warming theory. I believe that she had every right to express her views in her thinly disguised “novel”, I love the 1st Amendment. I hope she is not offended when I express my 1st Amendment rights as well when I say, "TOTAL CRAP!!!!!!!!!"

While my first response must be one of respect for varying opinions—and appreciation that this reader took the time to write what is very clearly an honest review—there really is no way to relay adequately my feelings about the above personal accusations.  Yes, World-Mart is a social commentary.  That is what dystopian literature is all about.  But I wrote this novel because I love my country and I write what I write because I feel a personal responsibility to do all I can to protect the liberty, freedom, and the enterprise I felt defined the United States throughout my childhood.  Not everyone will agree that we have a problem with corporate growth and the impact that has on our government and social hierarchy.  I can only hope my book will help people to raise some of those issues and get some progressive discussion going.

Another issue some readers have had has been in response to the book’s strict adherence to the classic dystopian model: government out of control + protagonists struggling against it = provocative but grim ending.  One reviewer writes about World-Mart:

I can see the events of this book as really happening in our world. I truly hope they do not, but some of the events are taking place in our lives. It is, perhaps, the reality of the plot, the possibility that it is a tale of our future, that causes me to not like the story.

Well done.

Note: This is probably the most confused review I have ever tried to write! How can, "I didn't like it," and "well done" be in the same review?? That cannot make sense. But it does!

Do I recommend this book after writing the above? Yes.

This truly is the response what I was reaching for when I wrote World-Mart.  I’m grateful to the above reviewer for being so honest about how the book affected him/her.  On the opposite side of the coin, I can appreciate how some readers might become emotionally invested in the protagonists (despite my attempt to keep them as flat and complacent as any good Mart worker) and therefore might also find their fates disturbing.

To these people, I sincerely apologize.  I’m currently writing a book with a happy ending just for you.

I really do hope you enjoyed World-Mart, but I hope it also left a painfully sour taste in your mouth.  I hope it made you a little angry.  I hope some of the finer plot points it haunt you.  That is what a good dystopia is supposed to do.  If World-Mart struck an especially harsh chord with you—if the ending left you seething, for example—to you I say good.  Now what are you going to do about it to ensure it doesn’t actually come to pass?