This could have been a good book IF he would have continued with the harassment part of it instead of turning the story into corporate drivel.

REVIEW: I didn't buy the many plot-convenient memory lapses by the protagonist... but otherwise a good corporate shenanigans/sexual harrassment tale.

VERDICT: 3 to 4 stars, if you don't mind reading about dated technology (CD-ROMs are the future, ha ha).

Holy fuck is this some misogynistic hot garbage. How this viciously misogynistic drivel became a best seller and pop culture phenomenon is beyond me. This is arguably the single worst book I've ever hate-read, and I have read Dustin Diamond's memoir.

Very good book. It's my first by Michael Crichton, and now I want to read more. It was one of this month's selections (did not win) for one of my book clubs. I could hardly put the book down, because I wanted to know what was going to happen!

Exists in a constantly stressed, hateful, 24-hour dog-eat-dog work environment. I have my own life if I want that. As an insight into how shallow, right-wing American brains work, it’s kind of useful, but lumbering 6’10” idiot Crichton writes with zero flair and everyone and everything is lame and shallow. Try to movie version, much funnier and sleazier, and with Michael Douglas sporting a truckstop lesbian haircut.

“It’s like that virtual reality thing you have...Those environments that seem real but aren’t really there. We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas. Those environments are changing. It’s changed with regard to women, and it’s going to start changing with regard to men. The men didn’t like it when it changed before, and the women aren’t going to like it changing now. And some people will take advantage. But in the final analysis, it’ll all work out.”

A couple months ago I bought up a ton of Michael Crichton books, used and on sale. It was seriously a steal. And since then I’ve been trying to read through the books of his that I bought. I had been struggling to get started on this little project, obviously, since I’m just now starting and it’s been several months since I initially bought the books. But with Coronavirus and quarantine, my reading schedule has been opened up to all new possibilities! Nearly endless hours of reading time!

I am a huge fan of Jurassic Park. Okay, not just a huge fan. It’s my favorite book. I read it once a year as my holiday read. So Crichton is kind of set up on a pedestal amongst the other great authors of my personal library. Sitting on his glorious throne made of techno-babble and dino fossils. Saints halo over his head (possibly made of golden dipped DNA strands but I’m just going to stop with that image right now). And Disclosure did not disappoint! Albeit it is different from anything I’ve read by him before.

Disclosure follows Tom Sanders, a division manager at a tech company, as he maneuvers through a sexual harassment charge, a charge that he puts against his superior, a woman, named Merideth Johnson. And during this whole debacle, there is another, more sinister, plot going on. Not everything is as it seems.

So, first of all, this book was WAY ahead of its time. Talking about sexual harassment cases at all. I mean the book was published in 1993. That kind of stuff just wasn’t talked about at all back then. And on top of all that, it is a man bringing up allegations against a woman, which never happened back then and is still rare today. This book was WAY WAY WAY ahead of its time. And it was interesting to read now, in 2020, in the light of the Me Too movement, because Crichton goes into some seriously touchy details. Everyones flippancy about sexual harassment. The gray areas of it all. The way sexual harassment is all about power and demonstration of power. In places, it definitely made me uncomfortable, but that was the point. Crichton wants the reader to be made uncomfortable by the things characters are saying, about how sexual harassment is no big deal and how all women are asking for it, but also how it is impossible to rape a man. When clearly it is. This is an uncomfortable subject, an uncomfortable book, and that’s what makes it so good. He doesn’t shy away from any of it. Not the opinions, the way cases like these are usually handled (back in this time anyway), the descriptions of such events, or the confusing emotions that are involved.

But, my goodness, that twist that comes towards the end of the novel that Johnson was only abusing Sanders in order to get him to quit and then to blame him for mistakes she had made in a production line! That came out of nowhere! Okay, not nowhere. Crichton’s motif is well-placed foreshadowing that is really easy to miss if you’re just not looking for it. And going back and flipping through the book I could see all the little hints he was giving to the bigger picture. This is not a suggestion to read Crichton with the mindset that everything is foreshadowing, or to be looking for it everywhere, that kind of takes away from the joy of the big reveal. If you notice it in your own read of the novel, then great, you are oh so much smarter than I. But if you don’t, then you get to be delighted either way. It makes the book build and build and build until the reader finally gets to take a breath when everything is resolved.

This book is seriously tense, y’all. During the mediation meetings between Johnson and Sanders and their legal teams, my heart was literally beating out of my chest from nerves. Crichton knows how to get you going, there is no doubt about that.

I’ll admit, Crichton’s writing style is simple. He doesn’t mess around with fluff or filler. His descriptions are one and done and he’s not too big on simile or allusions. However, it’s never boring and the reader always gets a full picture of whats going on. He’s just not going to spoon-feed you anything. But it works with the kind of stuff he writes. He writes mostly about technology gone wrong or being used for nefarious purposes. Or in this case, he’s writing about a sexual harassment case inside a tech-company (and you know he just had to talk about CD-Roms and how they’re the fastest way to get information and how the Internet was a new, big deal. The 90s man).

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely! It’s a fascinating read in this modern era, even if the technical lingo is a bit outdated, and dives deep into subjects that are even more relevant today. Crichton does not disappoint when it comes to character building, tension, or plot development.

"Power is neither male nor female."

Ultimately I'm giving this one a three star rating for various reasons, but it was engrossing and harder to put down than most 3 star books.

Crichton touches on the very real but often neglected and non-discussed issue of using sexual harassment as a weapon and political maneuver. Usually this subject is brought up because of the power being leaked out of the other end of the spectrum, producing victims, yet here he shows that certainly isn't always the case, even if it's not politically correct to point that out. The issue of diversity and women's rights come up often, but rather than making it sound like sexism digs, he's showing the black and white angles that aren't influenced by only emotive responses.

Despite having Meredith Johnson be a manipulative shrew who used sex as a weapon, and his wife Susan sadly seeing herself as a victim while not able to hold it together well, Crichton did deliver the excellent female character Fernandez as the attorney, and the intelligent and well-appreciated Stephanie Kaplan. Tom himself as a lead was relatively mediocre and not fully convincing by himself, but still the story was a hard to put down soap opera.

Technology in it is severely dated – oooh! Shiny cd drives alert! --- but I read it for the story and not the dinosaur advancements.

Sometimes first names are overused in dialogue, and sometimes characters are slightly one-dimensional, but it was an enjoyable corporate soap opera with a satisfying take-off turn in the end. I still have a lot of Michael Crichton left to read, which excites me since I’ve enjoyed most of the books by him I’ve tried so far.

I read this book on the recommendation of one of my colleagues, a lady, who was also my senior in college. When I told her that I had finished it, she invited me to her room in the evening to discuss it. I said: "Are you crazy? I am not entering your room without a witness!"

Crichton had got to me, very badly...

Not his best, not his worst. Could’ve used more dinosaurs.

Well,I did not like this book much....

I really enjoyed this. It was different than many of his other books, basically based on a real story where a woman had sexually harassed men in the work place and gotten away with it for years as a favorite of the boss. An intelligent manipulative woman, she knew how to gain the boss's respect and stay in his good graces, mostly by playing to his emotional needs. I don't want to give away the story line so won't say more. Almost reads like an investigative report found in a big corporation. Excellent read and good pacing. I really like Crichton and he never fails to make me think. The book micro got me to thinking about how far along our government is in scientific developments. You never know what's possible is the reality of our existence. Crichton never fails to excite and explore unknown areas.

Definitely worth reading and I recommend heartily.

I found this to be quite compelling and thoughtful. How do we, as humans, respect and embrace the differences between men and women? That said, I suggest skimming the x-rated scene just enough to understand what was happening… I did.