Book Review-(Not That You Asked)

In keeping up my New Year's Resolutions, I am following the example of Beth's blog. She actually has a whole book review section. I don't think I'm going to go that far. But if you like my review enough let me know and i'll do more of these!

So this review is about this HILARIOUS book I was given by Matt, my co-worker, for Christmas. It's by guy named Steve Almond and is called (Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions. To answer your question, YES, half of the title is in parenthesis. But ALL of the book is freaking hilarious. Except for the Kurt Vonnegut part. But I'm getting too ahead of myself. Let me back up.

The book is just kind of a nice collection of short experiences, memoirs, essays and theories on life, love, kids and society in general. The book starts out with a series of letters to Oprah in the style of "Letters from a Nut." (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to Borders or Barnes & Noble one of these days and just pick it up. All you need is about 2 minutes to read one of these letters to understand)

Well, in this book, the first letter is a pre-emptive rejection of Oprah. Yes, he rejects HER and says that he KNOWS she's thinking of choosing him to be her book of the month, but that he wants no part of it because Oprah is, as he puts it, "The Wal-Mart of hope."

The next letter is him realizing the mistake he's made, and he tries to make it up to her. He writes letter after letter becoming more and more desperate to recover from what he perceives as her coldness towards him because of his first letter. He doing everything possible to win her back doing crazy things like accusing Steadman (her boyfriend of too many years to count) of being "Snidely Whiplash-esque" and talking about how she got screwed out of the Oscar for the movie "The Color Purple".

The final letter says it's being accompanied with his 4 month old daughter, who he knows Oprah will raise with the same care she puts into her show. He even says that he's including along some breast milk because his daughter doesn't eat solid foods yet, and to please refrigerate it quickly.

After I read the first few pages of this book, I was SOOO excited to read the rest! This was going to be HILARIOUS!! Slams on Condoleezza Rice, blatant offending and then butt-kissing of Oprah? What could be better? But then the Vonnegut part begins.

I'm sorry, but I don't know who Kurt Vonnegut is. I've heard about his book "Slaughterhouse Five" but I've never read it. And after reading the first half of this little "Crushing on Vonnegut" diatribe, I didn't think I ever wanted to. Steve Almond talks about how he schemes and connives and finally scores a ticket to an author's forum with Vonnegut and other current authors. He talks about how the other authors are only interested in pimping their books, how they are too "naive" and "optimistic" about life, and how Vonnegut is the ONLY one that REALLY gets how life really is.

Honestly, it just seemed that Vonnegut was an old, crotchety, negative atheist. He readily admits that he is an atheist, and that the world is going to disintegrate and turn into dust in 12 years because we don't take care of it, and we don't take care of each other. Ok, maybe not as soon as 12 years, but he says it's DEFINITELY going that way, what with all these people's belief in GOD and what not. I didn't want to read about him and his negative theories on life anymore, and it was like this Vonnegut part was never going to end. So I stopped reading it back in January.

Anyway, It took me so long to finally pick up the book again and trudge through the rest of the Vonnegut pages. But I'm SOOOO glad I did. The rest of the book is back to being laugh out loud funny. He talks a lot about going through puberty and about the school and family humiliation that always seems to follow these horrible times. He talks about how he HATES the Red Sox based on the fact that they cost his beloved Oakland A's the championship back in the early 70's. He continues to hate them even though he's lived in Boston for years and even teaches at Boston College. He actually calls himself the "Red Sox Anti-Christ."

There is a huge part about how he almost became a VH1 reality show whore and an even BIGGER part about how he resigned from Boston College because they invited Condoleezza Rice to speak at the commencement ceremony. He actually was invited to the Hannity & Colmes show and he TOTALLY humiliated them by bringing up the Bill O'Reilly sexual harassment situation. As I've previously brought up, I detest Hannity and O'Reilly. I don't think I would consider myself a Democrat, but I HATE that if you call yourself a "Republican" you are immediately thought to align yourselves with scum like O'Reilly. So I don't know what I am. But I know who I don't like.

Anyway, the last part of this book is about the birth of his daughter and the many ways he could've killed her if someone wasn't there to supervise him. It makes me think that I am NOT READY to be a parent AT ALL. But his honest, true love for his daughter brought tears to my eyes in it's sincerity and truthfulness. I love my little gusano so much, but I know I will love it even more when I see it's little shining face. How can I possibly prepare for that? That's what the last chapter of the book tells me.

Anyway, most of my blog readers will like to know that while this book is wonderfully touching and true, it is NOT rated PG. Well, I would say that MOST of it is PG, but it has some DEFINITE rated "R" moments. Sadly, these moments were usually the ones that made me laugh out loud in quiet public places. I just wanted everyone to know that before they ran out and got the book.

You will LOVE this book, but don't say I didn't warn you. And what ever you do, DON'T be drinking anything when you read the story about when he was caught shoplifting or when he decides to have his girlfriend wax his chest. And especially when you read the last line of the book. Even to the end, hilarious.

Enjoy!