I Suck At Girls by Justin Halpern

5 Stars

 

I Suck At Girls is Justin Halpern's sophomore novel, and the inspiration behind the short-lived television show Surviving Jack. I began watching said T.V. show for one reason . . .



According to my family we all wanted to watch it because the commercials were so funny and made the show look entertaining, but . . . nope. I just wanted to spend 30 minutes looking at Christopher Meloni.

Turns out the show was pretty funny too . . .



It's a shame it got cancelled so soon. RIP Surviving Jack, you will be missed . . .



Unless you reside under a rock, you have heard of Sh*t My Dad Says at this point. (I'd link you to all the profound things I had to say about that one, but sadly I read it before I started reviewing.) I think Halpern sums up SMDS quite well without me:

"Getting a book deal and a TV show based on less than five hundred total words is a level of luck reserved for people who survive plan crashes or find out they're Oprah's long-lost sister."

Sh*t My Dad Says made for a great twitter account and website, but it just didn't have enough material to carry over into a book. When Surviving Jack came on the air, I figured it was just a revamped SMDS - Halpern did get his start as a T.V. writer, after all. It turns out I was wrong and Jack was actually based on this little book instead.

I Suck At Girls is Halpern's walk down memory lane through all of his failed relationships until he finally found "the one." He tells tales of his first crush - and how he drew her a picture of a dog shitting all over her face to profess his love; his first brush with pornographic magazines - which he stole from a homeless camp in the canyons of California where he was chased by a bum yelling "Gimme back my titties!!!"; of his first kiss after his high school homecoming dance:

"In the back of a taxi cab driven by a guy who looked like Ernest Hemingway with a meth addiction, with Snow's "Informer" playing on the radio . . ."

He talks about finally growing a set big enough to profess to the girl of his dreams that he wanted to ask her to the prom, but feared she would say no - only to have her confirm those fears; of traveling all the way to Europe in order to finally party and nail some broads - where his stomach revolted on him and became "filled with too much poo poo and fart" according to the non-English speaking doctor; to his first time and fantasies about a 45-minute romp filled with multiple orgasms for his partner - that resulted in a reality of a 1 minute 36 second session instead; and finally to stories about his wife and the first party he attended at her apartment - where she had to barricade the door while he had an epic bout with diarrhea . . .



This book was everything I was looking for to wrap up my year of reading. It was short, it was funny, it was sometimes sweet, and Halpern is a connoisseur of profanity, which I always appreciate. (Also note, most of the chapters are told from the perspective of a teenaged boy so it's also chauvinistic and raunchy and everything else I love about comedies.) Halpern married the only girl he'd ever "gone stupid for" and this is a hilarious tribute to their love.

Halpern you got me at the right place and the right time so you get all the stars. Happy F*&^%$# New Year. Find me on the flip side where I'll be back to my curmudgeony self . . .

 

Girl Online by Zoe Sugg

1 Star

 

THIS is the book that broke the record for highest first-week sales of all-time leaving Harry Potter in its wake??? Here's what Professor Snape thinks about that . . .



And here's what I think . . .



I picked up Girl Online for the simple fact that it was breaking sales records left and right. I had certainly never heard of "Zoella" before. And then???? Then I found out the "author" (maybe, seems she didn't even write this piece of garbage at this point) was someone who became famous via You Tube. No offense to all you YouTubers out there, but someone who became famous for vlogging is not someone I would automatically equate with having the ability to write a novel. Lucky for us all (not) - this is the age where every Joe Blow seems to be getting an automatic extension on their 15 minutes of fame in order to make an extra dollar or twelve.

But like I said, I didn't know anything about this book or the author upon starting. When I read the synopsis, I figured I would at least enjoy this little story. I read (and like) a lot of young adult selections and I'm 100% addicted to a certain program about a girl with a blog . . .



For those of you who (like me) are unfamiliar with this book, the premise is as follows: Penny is your average awkward teenager. She's a little clumsy and a lot unsure about her looks. In order to connect with others like herself, Penny starts a blog called GirlOnline where she can express herself anonymously. All is well until she starts blogging about a mystery man she met and romanced while visiting New York City with her family . . . and it turns out he is not only a little famous but also has a famous girlfriend to boot.

Sounds clichéd, but potentially adorable right? Yeah, notsamuch. While the clichés and overused storyline could have been forgiven, the horrible writing and terrible characters cannot.

Some of the problems are:

1. This "blog" by an anonymous rando goes from zero to 10,715 followers in less than a year. The problem? She writes about NOTHING - just her day-to-day bullshit life.



There's no way she'd get that kind of following. Now THIS chick???



She's someone who deserves a following. HI. LAR. IOUS.

2. Absentee parents. This time around they are disguised as overworked party planners, but they still let their 15 year old daughter go off with a complete stranger in NYC.



3. Penny is sooooooo stupid:

"In a way, it's nice to know that "panic attacks" are an actual thing . . . "

"A really cold faraway land like Russia or Norway (it's cold in Norway, right?)"

"Black-and-white photos are my favorite - they're like little moments of history captured forever." (Uhhhhh, aren't all photos a little moment of history captured forever????)



4. And, of course, INSTALOVE.

"I still don't really know very much about Noah, on some deeper level it feels like I've known him forever. Is this what it means when people talk about meeting their soul mate?"



The one near positive about the whole mess? Penny's BFF and his voice of reason:

"How can you be in love with this guy if you only just met him?"



'Zactly. Unfortunately, even he wore thin after awhile.

According to Goodreads I've read 215 books this year. Girl Online will easily make the Top 10 worst of those books. The only thing I can say I truly enjoyed? This line:

"Prince Charming wasn't a cheater and Cinderella wasn't a ho."

Which was probably supposed to make me feel really sorry for Penny, but somehow had me cracking up instead. Whoops.

Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory

4 Stars

 

It seems everyone but me is reading comic books these days. I'm even raising a tiny Sheldon Cooper with ginormous boxes full of nearly any superhero my heart could possibly desire and yet I still hesitate when it comes to that genre. Why???? I think it's because of my own personal superhero complex. You see, in my house it goes a little something like this . . .



When I saw Chew hope was restored that I too could learn to love the graphic novel.

Tony Chu lives in a world quite different from ours. After the bird flu struck the country bigtime, people were left with little choice when it came to chicken dinners . . .


(Too soon? Naaaaah.)

The lack of chicken never bothered Tony, though, being as he is cibopathic - a person who receives the life history of anything he eats. Because of this condition, Tony has always tended to stick to the one food that somehow doesn't project psychic imagery to him - the beet . . .


(Proof that there is a Jeff Goldblum .gif for any occasion. ALL HAIL JEFF GOLDBLUM!)

The general populous doesn't share Tony's issue, however, and chicken has become a hot commodity on the black market so restaurants are willing to do almost anything to get it. It's either get the real deal or be left serving up a fake chicken substitute . . .



As a detective with the Special Crimes Division of the F.D.A., it is Tony's job to track down the chicken smuggling ring as well as solve any other crimes that happen to pop up during the process. He only has to take a little nibble out of the victims in order to figure out the whodunit . . .



Obviously I get a kick out of reading weird shit, and Chew is definitely weird. Buuuuuut, I have no clue how to appropriately review a comic, so you get what you get. The story was totally unique, the characters were enjoyable, there was great flow to the action in between the various chapters, and the artwork was quality . . .



And if anyone can fall in love whilst being vomited on, they're probably going to be liked by me.

Surviving the Angel of Death by Eva Mozes Kor

3.5 Stars

 

Surviving the Angel of Death is the true story of Eva Mozes and her twin sister Miriam and the place where they were raised . . .



"At Auschwitz dying was so easy. Surviving was a fulltime job. We gave them our blood, our bodies, our pride, our dignity, and in turn, they let us live one more day."

Eva and Miriam began their life as normal as you or I . . .



They were born to a middle-income family in Romania and were doted on by all for not only being adorable, but for being a matched set as well. When war broke out, many of Eva's relatives fled to Palestine in order to escape the rumored persecution of the Jews they kept hearing about, but Eva's mother held her ground and refused to move. By refusing to flee she signed the death certificate for nearly their entire family. Portions of Romania were eventually turned over to Hungarian rule and the family was relocated first to one of the many ghettos and eventually onto a train which would transport them to Auschwitz.

It is there the girls were put under the care of Dr. Josef Mengele.



The remainder of the book is Eva and Miriam's remarkable tale of survival. Ms. Kor tells of how she and her sister had to endure illness, starvation and experimentation at the hand of the Nazis. And amazingly, at the end of it all she talks about forgiveness . . .

"I hope, in some small way, to send the world a message of forgiveness; a message of peace, a message of hope, a message of healing. Let there be no more wars, no more experiments without informed consent, no more gas chambers, no more bombs, no more hatred, no more killing, no more Auschwitzes."

This story is such an important one and I applaud Ms. Kor's decision to write it in a style appropriate for children. There are no gory details or any added "shock and awe" factors other than the horrifying reality of life in a concentration camp told. The effect is still chilling.

Creative Cursing by Sarah Royal and Jillian Panarese

5 Stars

 

Happy Holidays to all!!!! Here's a little non-review of a very fun little book.



Once again I was able to keep the Elf on the Shelf drunk enough that he couldn't report my true behavior to Santa. This year I also made sure to capture photographic evidence of our badly behaving elf in case I needed some blackmail material . . .



It worked. Santa brought me presents!!!!



Yay me! (FYI - He also brought me a kid who woke up at 5:00 a.m., so the day hasn't been all sunshine and daisies.) I didn't even know the little book at the bottom of the above photo existed until Jason wrote about it. Please make sure to direct all trollings and hate mail his way since an innocent gal like myself would have never read something like Creative Cursing if it weren't for the bad examples like him in my life; )

This book is exactly what the synopsis says - a flipbook of various words that when parsed together create an entire dictionary of new curses. It's 100% inappropriate. Even Walter White thought so and he cooks f&^%$#g METH . . .



And it's hilarious . . .



Unfortunately things took a turn for the worst when Mitchell noticed the new addition to our menagerie . . .



Meet Jack Skullington. It's awesome to have friends who really get me ; )

Mitchell hated him immediately and insisted that he get to choose the next new curse-word-combo . . .



Well, that's insulting : (

Hopefully once he runs through the options of ways to cuss me out, he will learn to accept our new family member.

As for me? I think this guy has the right idea . . .



but alas I am stuck in a never-ending loop of putting batteries in new toys, listening to the rapid gunfire coming from the Xbox in the basement, the incessant squeaky feet noise of the basketball game coming from the television in the family room and dealing with the aftermath of the tweaked out cat who somehow scored some catnip in his stocking . . .



Have no worries, though . . .



I just hope the turkey comes out better than it did last year . . .

Thug Kitchen

4 Stars

 

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SWEAR WORDS


Hey look, it’s a controversial book. Mitchell never decides we should read these, so let’s see what’s up ; )

Okay, there’s obviously a giant pink elephant in the room with respect to Thug Kitchen.  It's been equated to being modern-day blackface and many people have been very vocal about how much they hate it.  I’m going to address the matter and move on. There are A LOT of social injustices in the world. Issues like racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, etc. still run rampant and that needs to change. Luckily one thing everyone is still allowed is the ability to speak freely. People are entitled to be offended by whatever the f*&^ they choose and I’m not interested in arguing with others who don’t share my opinion about something as stupid as a book. Don’t like this one? Then don’t buy it. Pretty simple. As for me? I think it classes up my kitchen counter ; )



I’m not offended by much, so I took Thug Kitchen at face value for what it is– a gimmick, plain and simple. There are eleventy billion foodie blogs started each year. In order to get people to look at one over all the others and maybe eventually even turn it into a book, it obviously has to toss something special on the table. In this case it’s a bunch of mother*&^%#s. Yep, if you don’t like swearing, you best just back away from the cookbook immediately.



See? Bad words. This book has them. However, if you can get past the cursing, you’ll find a solid cookbook. Not only does Thug Kitchen contain recipes regular humans who don’t work in Michelin starred restaurants in their spare time can create, it also has helpful hints on pantry staples as well as various utensils and gadgets you actually need in your kitchen when starting out on your own. And it has pretty pictures . . .



Seriously, a cookbook with shitty pictures is a total waste of money.

The only downside? The recipes are all vegetarian, so the über carnivore probably won’t be delighted . . . but you can just tell them to shut the f*&^ up and chug back a delicious beverage instead of bitching about the fact there is no carcass on their plate come dinnertime . . .



There’s even recipes in there for the kids . . .



I keed, I keed. Don’t let your children read this book. What the f*&^ kind of parents are you people?!?!?!

The Egg by Andy Weir

A review told in giffery . . .

Soooooo everyone else read The Egg and were all like . . .



Then I read it and was all like . . .



Why is that?



What can I say? It’s 4 pages long and didn’t move me like it did everyone else. Shit happens.

For some reason I was thinking it was going to be something a little more like this . . .



Like I said, I'm an asshole.

All I can do is offer my sincerest heartfelt apology . . .



And remind all of you that this is only my opinion . . .

 

That's right.  It is.

Oh, and one final thing in my defense. I strong-armed a poopton of people into reading The Martian so F-off if you don’t think it’s okay that I don’t crap my drawers over this one.