Cannonball Read Entries #25-27: The Threesome

Since I ended up knocking out three books while I was sick and without an internet connection, I'm going to go ahead and cram reviews for three separate books into one post, else I end up clogging your RS Feed. Is it cheating? Maybe a little, but your Google reader will thank me.

Cannonball Read Entry #25: Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin
Admittedly, it's a tiny bit unfair for me to try and review this one, especially when you consider that I have never dated a woman, nor do I ever plan on being one. Essentially, the power of the vagina, a key motivator in the book, holds absolutely no sway over me whatsoever. Now, if we were to whip out some dicks...

But I digress. Compiled by Ben Karlin, Dumped is a collection of life lessons that have come from being kicked to the curb by those of the fairer sex. Some are important, some are essentially throw away little moments, and some involve cumming on a cat.

Really.

Anyway, since there are a shitload of short stories in here, I'm just gonna go through the table of contents and see what I can remember from reading this while on morphine:

• Andy Richter: To be honest, I kinda wrote off Andy Richter for a long time, although recently I've come to appreciate him on the sole virtue that OH MY GOD! He's really funny! Even if he did star in "Quintuplets". But whatever, his story about being fattened up by his family so that he would stay with them forever made me laugh.
• Stephen Colbert: Despite being the top-billed star, his story is...Well, it's disappointing. The joke of the story is that he let his wife black out bits she didn't approve of, and most of it ends up being blacked out. *Rim Shot* This is one of those jokes that works better in theory than execution.
• Larry Wilmore: Proves what I suspected from his book: Namely, that he works better in short bursts of energy, instead of spreading a joke waaaaaaaaay too far.
• Rodney Rothman: Has the longest story of the bunch (clocking in at 25 pages when most last only about five pages) despite being the least recognizable. I wouldn't mind this as much if his "sweet good guy routine looking back on loves lost" routine didn't wear it's welcome out about half-way through.
• Tom McCarthy: I'm not sure who he is, but ultimately, this was one of the sweeter and more heartbreaking of the stories. Sweet, endearing and endlessly charming.
• Dan Savage: Yup, he's in here too, despite being a card-carrying homosexual (Yeah, there's a card for it now.) Not surprisingly, it's the dirtiest story out of all of them, but whatever, I liked it.
• Alex Gregory: This one irritated me a bit. For fuck's sake man, I know you're a cartoonist for the New Yorker, but even the guy from OK GO took the time to pump out a story. This is a fucking short story book. There is no reason you get to shit out a clever little drawing and call it a day.
• Patton Oswalt: I've decided that Patton Oswalt is Jesus. This is the only story out of the entire book that made me physically laugh out loud.

All in all, a pretty good book. There are plenty of other stories, but they're all just sort of okay. Nothing great, nothing terrible. Just okay.

Cannonball Read Entry #26: My Horizontal Life - Chelsea Handler
I am fully aware that it makes absolutely no sense to read Chelsea Handler's first book last for the CBR. Why did I do it? Well, it's simple: I have no sense of planning.

Oddly enough, despite being her first book, "My Horizontal Life" is actually her best book. While it's another memoir compromised of short stories, this one focuses exclusively on her one night stands and the various lessons she learned from them.

Starting to notice a pattern here?

Granted, her later books are both better in at least the comedic sense, but the thing about "My Horizontal Life" is that it has a purpose and a message: The stories are are all still loaded with booze, sex, and a complete lack of dignity, but they're at least focused on the overall message of the story.

If we're going to compare "My Horizontal Life" to Handler's other books, it's not as funny as her later work, but it's definitely a tighter, more focused package.

Cannonball Read Entry #27: My Blind Date Went Blind! (...And Other True Stories Of Dates Gone Wrong) - Virginia Vitzthum
Yes, shut up, another book of short stories where people learn life lessons from amusing anecdotes. I was in the hospital for fuck's sake! My gay uncles bought it for me and they are awesome.

But yes, it's another collection of stories, this time about bad blind dates (something I'm not exactly unfamiliar with). For the most part, they're really not that bad, and only a small percentage of them are outright cringe-inducing. Not that I'm trying to be petty here, but when you're touting a story about a blind date featuring temporary blindness and most of the dates only feature jerks and assholes who don't understand the difference between "Being honest" and "Being a douchebag", I just feel a bit ripped off here.

There are stories about blind dates that, despite going wrong, actually end in happily ever, and along with providing an emotional backbone, these are actually the far more interesting story then the ones about "Oh, he said he wasn't attracted to me then drove off!" If you filled the entire book with stories like these, it would've probably been much better, but sadly, we settle for just being okay.

But honestly, it's a nice little throwaway book; It's nothing really all that serious, just something meant to be picked up on the fly, read for a couple pages, then put down. Something for, say, when you're stuck in the hospital and you keep getting knocked out by gravol.