I recently watched Tara Mooknee's YouTube essay, "The anatomy of a 'girl's girl' (& when it turns toxic)," which is an analysis of the trending TikTok topic of girl's girls, what they are, and what they represent within the broader cultural sphere. While reading FRIENDS TO KEEP IN ART AND LIFE, I kept thinking of that video, because I feel like the humor in this book is basically targeted towards the types of girls who think they're girl's girls, unironically.
This was fun but not as good as MEN TO AVOID IN ART AND LIFE. It did get a good chuckle out of me though so it gets at least a three star rating.
Here's the thing: I am super nosy. I don't know if any of you young people still read fashion magazines, but when I was in my TigerBeat, CosmoGirl, Seventeen, Elle phase, I lived for the sections in these magazines where Real Teen Girls Would Tell Their Real Teen Stories™. Sometimes it would be written out like a Medium article, and sometimes you'd get a section in the back with girls (or maybe guys/nonbinary people, idk, it was anonymous), confessing their totally most cringiest moments, Dear Abby style. I still remember some of my favorites, like this one about a girl who popped out of her tube top like a champagne cork out of a fizzy bottle. Or the girl who decided to let it go in the pool, only for the pool chemicals to turn her urine purple.
This book is basically that, in book form. I don't actually know who the LadyGang is, but I guess they're podcast hosts, and in this collection they have confessed some of their own sins, in addition to crowdsourcing more from their listening audience. I got hooked into this book through the introductory essay, Poopnique, about how Jac apparently sits on her toilet like a gargoyle with her feet on the seat to poop. That set the stage rather nicely for what was to come.
I do agree with the arguments that the podcast hosts were the least interesting in terms of stories. Jac's were usually great and Becca had some good ones, but a lot of Keltie's were just Hollywood humblebrags masked as "oh my god, so embarrassing." Which I wasn't mad about, but it wasn't exactly cringe as, say, the lady who took a laxative pill to unblock herself and ended up on a multi-day poopscapade that ruined $4000 of underwear and linens. Or the crime writer who sent a business card of herself with a photo to a serial killer she wanted to write about in prison, only to find out that he'd, I guess, traded her photos for candy with other inmates who were only too happy to write to her.
There's something very voyeuristic about this collection in a way that kind of reminds me of the PostSecret era of found content. I do agree that women should be able to talk about a lot of the "taboo" subjects in this book and that it isn't fair that so many things are acceptable for men to talk about (pooping, farting) that everyone will shame women for. So I think in that sense, this exercise is rather progressive, and also contains stories that will make people think either "wow, there really are no unique experiences" or "now I don't feel so alone." It was a brisk and interesting read but I didn't get much out of it beyond that.
SAFELY ENDANGERED is such a cute, darkly humorous graphic novel. I've never actually read the webtoon but I've seen panels of it posted on social media and it feels good to have finally purchased a copy of it to support the author.
I liked the flow of the comic and I felt like everything felt very cohesive. As a little sampling of the author's humor, it can be either dark or wholesome. Dark: a man saying he named a comet after his wife before cutting to a panel that says "Cheating Slut comet discovered!" Wholesome: A line being cleared in a game of Tetris, only for new pieces to fall and a caption that says: Sometimes friends disappear but then new ones will take their place.
McCoy's drawing style is minimal and very cute. This is perfect for people who aren't afraid to "go there" with their sense of humor.
There's this writer for the New Yorker who does satire and I keep thinking his stupid satire posts are real because this is the kind of world we live in now. HOW TO STAY PRODUCTIVE WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING is a lot like that. It's high-level satire but so dry that you could almost take it seriously. This is basically a parody of a self-help book but with just enough good advice thrown in that you might find yourself Googling, "Can satire give you stress dreams?"
The answer, in case you were wondering, is yes.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
YOU LOOK LIKE A THING AND I LOVE YOU was a purely impulsive buy. Last year I made it one of my New Years' Reading Goals to pick up a book about tech every month for work-- and I failed. But I still do really enjoy reading books about technology, especially when they have a slightly comical bent, as this one does. YOU LOOK LIKE A THING is about artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms, how they work, and the funny ways they can go wrong.
The author does such a good job making this book accessible to people who may have only a limited working knowledge of how programming works. She also illustrates her points with funny little comics and illustrations. She says that training AI is like training a dog: you have to be specific and make sure you do the right kinds of trainings; otherwise, the AI will take the path of least resistance. One of the examples was a horse betting AI who decided that the most profitable option was to not bet at all.
She also cautions that sometimes the path the AI chooses as the most efficient may not be the most beneficial to humans. An example for this was an AI playing a flight simulator who found out that if they crashed the plane at high velocity, it overloaded the systems that measured force, which then rewarded the AI for a soft landing at 0 (even though if a landing like this was attempted IRL, it would kill everyone on the plane). Similar problems occurred when a self-driving car AI was only trained on what trucks looked like from behind and not the side (it decided the sideways truck was am overhead billboard sign and collided with it).
If you're interested in AI and tech, you'll love this book. It's very cute and very funny. It gets a little repetitive after a while but I really enjoyed reading it nonetheless.
People often tell me that they follow me because they literally have no idea what I'm going to read next. Which is not an exaggeration, by the way. One day I might be reading an erotica about shape-shifters who can turn into balloon animals, the next, I might be reading Paris Hilton's 2004 memoir, CONFESSIONS OF AN HEIRESS. Basically the only consistency in what I read is that it's usually in bad taste. So naturally, a book like REGRETSY is perfectly on brand for me.
REGRESTY is one of those blog-to-books that was so trendy in the late 2000s, before the internet really became the gigantic meme that it is today. Memes used to be hard to find, believe it or not. In the days of the dinosaurs, you had to know the right people to meme. Regresty is apparently a blog where the creator of this book, April Winchell, shared some of the best of the worst of Etsy, including everything from reusable menstrual pads with vampire hunks printed on the crotch to photographs of doll heads posed with Brussels sprouts.
This is a pretty funny book. It's very similar to CAKE WRECKS, although I feel like the humor in this one is trying a little too hard. It's very nicely curated though and I think the author did a pretty good job cultivating items that were WTF-y but also intriguing enough that you could envision a universe where someone might want to buy these items. I especially liked that she allowed the creators to post a little rejoinder. Most of them were very good sports. My favorite was the seller who said that they didn't want to live in a world where everyone was too polite to say what they really thought. I agree.
I wouldn't say that this is a keeper but if you can find a copy for not too much, it's great for a laugh. My curiosity has been thoroughly satisfied.
I got this book while thrifting, which made me so happy because I've been wanting to read it for a while. Published in 2006, it definitely smacks of an early aughts image dumping site, and the graininess of the pictures and retro photoshop are totally endearing. This is basically just a compendium of photographs people took with their cats wearing strange outfits or with things on their backs or heads. My personal favorite was one where a plastic He Man action figure toy is riding a cat to victory. There's also a cute one of a cat decked out in jewelry and a tiara. This is a novelty book if there ever was one, but if you're a cat lady like I am and enjoy funny cat memes, I think you'll love this, too.
I've been wanting to read this book forever. WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS is an anthology of quotations from customers in bookshops, as reported by various booksellers. Most of them come from Jen Campbell herself, who used to work at a bookshop in the UK called Ripping Good Yarns, but the ones from elsewhere are quoted and cited, ranging from the obtuse to the delusional to the entitled to the barmy.
I thought this book was fun. It's not a keeper read, but it's definitely a solid pick-me-up. Anyone who has ever worked retail will recognize the language in here, especially the ridiculous requests. But I think it's even more fun if you've worked retail and you love books.
I recently read one of the most gut-punchingly sad books I've picked up in a while and it left me in such a funk that I found myself in desperate need of something happy to read. While skimming through my Kindle, I saw David Sedaris's name crop up and thought to myself, "Aha! CALYPSO! This will do. Mr. Sedaris never makes me cry-- unless it's with tears of laughter!"
So of course, obviously in my grievous time of need, I find out that CALYPSO is one of Mr. Sedaris's sadder works, revolving around the death of his mother and sister, and the pains of getting older. THANK YOU FOR PUNCHING ME WHILE I'M ALREADY GASPING, MR. SEDARIS. Don't worry, though, the sad bits are couched in his usual trademark dark humor, so even though it's a bit greyer than his typical fare, there's still a laughing rainbow in the background.
I have a weird sense of humor, and if you want to know what my sense of humor is like, pick up a book by David Sedaris. He's grumpy, he's sarcastic, he's introverted and neurotic. Sometimes he's a little un-PC, but mostly he seems to delight in just how weird everyone can be. It's oddly wholesome, in a way. I laughed out loud at how obsessively he began using his FitBit (because same); his pleasure at telling people weird, gross stories (also same); the sweating terror of soiling himself in a public place (as someone with a food sensitivity that triggers intestinal distress, big same); and I just can't get over how he named his beachside property the "Sea Section." CALYPSO made me a little sad, but it also made me laugh a lot, and I love his interactions with his husband and his family so much.
If you have been burned on so-called comedic memoirs before, give Sedaris a try.
I liked the other Cake Wreck book enough that I decided to get this one as well when it went on sale. Here's the thing: a lot of these meme dumping books don't age well because they're mean-spirited; but I like these because it's clear they're all in good fun. Someone was trying to do a nice thing (i.e. make a cake) and they just, well. Messed up a little. Or a lot.
Most of the cakes in this book are Christmas-themed but there are a couple other holidays as well, like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Years (so all Western/American holidays). It felt like the longest section was about ugly Santa cakes.
This was amusing and passed the time but I don't think I'd recommend buying it for more than like $5. Her other book was better.
When I was in high school and college, these sorts of "found and submitted" photo dumping sites were very popular, and a lot of them eventually landed book deals. Some of the most famous were hosted on icanhascheezburger, but there were others, like People of Wal-Mart Awkward Family Photos.
A lot of these memes don't hold up very well. I feel like people were getting away with making off-color jokes well into the aughts, shaming people in ways that were classist, racist, fat-phobic, or misogynistic. But Cake Wreck and Awkward Family Photos both stand the test of time pretty well, because (1) the content they're hosting for the most part is inherently wholesome (people who care about family photos usually do so because they love their families) and (2) the hosters let the images speak for themselves and even invite posters to share the stories behind the photos, which I really enjoyed.
The best thing about AWKWARD FAMILY PHOTOS the book is that a lot of the pictures are cute and just kind of funny but in a way that doesn't really make the people the butt of the joke. Like, there's a picture of a Star Wars-themed wedding that I adored. And there's an Xmas pic where a family is dressed up in their pajamas and everyone matches except the dad, who's wearing boxers. And there's another pic of a family at the lake where the dad (AGAIN, the dad) is wearing a zentai suit for some reason.
My favorite pics were probably the ones of kids misbehaving in a funny way (torturing their dolls, or holding up an Etch-a-Sketch that says I HATE THIS during a family gathering while grandma looks on in disapproval), the funny pet photos, or the ones that have kids who are obviously in some sort of rebellion phase dressed up like goths, emos, and punks. YAAASSS. Especially if it looks like they're kind of secretly having a good time and are just living their best goth/emo/punk lives.
This is the perfect pick-me-up for whenever you need something light to cleanse the literary palette.
AM I OVERTHINKING THIS? has been on my radar for a while as someone who has chronic anxiety. This is a hilarious and brilliantly constructed book consisting of charts, sometimes with found objects, about various worry-worthy (and not so worry-worthy) moments in life.
The illustrations were so funny. The author used things like tweezers, candles, bag handles, and matchsticks to make bar graphs and Venn diagrams. I'm not sure people who don't have anxiety will get the same level of "I feel seen!" enjoyment out of this as those who do, but speaking for myself, this made me cackle aloud at least twice and I think I might keep this on my Kindle for my next bad day.
Also, major props to the formatting team for making an image-heavy book that is actually readable in the Kindle app. I can't tell you how many books I've had to return to the store because the labels on the pictures were too small to read. The effort really matters!
I've been so busy lately that I've just been like, "What even is reading? Books? I don't know her." So when I noticed a whole bunch of Chronicle Books were on sale in the Kindle store I was like YAAAASS. Because everyone knows that the best thing to get you back into reading are easy books with lots of pictures.
MEN TO AVOID IN ART AND LIFE is a comical art/coffee table book consisting of classical works of art that have been captioned to make fun of mansplainers. The concept is pretty played out by the time you get to the end of the book but I felt like for 95% of it, the humor was totally on point, and I found myself giggling out loud more than once. I also liked how a list of the paintings used and where they were sourced is included at the end, in case you find one that tickles your fancy and want to see more.
I think people who love feminism and art will enjoy this. As far as feminism goes, this is strictly playing in the shallow waters, but it still got a smile or two and it was exactly what I needed at the time.
I think I'm funny-- but people who think they're funny are a lot like mediocre white dudes: they tend to grossly overestimate the effect of their own appeal. So obviously, as one who aspires to snarkdom, when one of my friends (who does NOT follow me on Goodreads btw, and therefore won't see what an asshole I'm about to be LOL) offered me this book (along with a couple other humor books/bathroom books), I was like YES. GOALS.
Sadly, this book was not goals. If goals were, well, a goal (I literally just Googled "what do you call the soccer basket"), and you were using a soccer stadium as an allegory for where this book fits into said goals, than this book would be the hot dog vendor selling mystery meat a la day-old bread to people in the nosebleeds. (Do they sell hot dogs at soccer games? I just Googled and it seems like they do in Europe, so I guess only Europeans will Get the Joke.)
This isn't a tongue-in-cheek handbook or even a guide. It's literally just a collection of quotes that you could easily see for free by logging into Facebook and looking at the memes your aunt likes to repost from that one local radio station she follows. Some of the quotes are funny, but calling this a "handbook" is incredibly misleading unless your definition of a handbook is "a book that fits in your hand." And then... yes.
If I had paid money for this, I'd be sending it back.
This book is so CUTE. Sometimes "meme" books like these can be a little off-putting because the captions can be super mean (see: PEOPLE OF WAL-MART and LOOK AT THAT FUCKING HIPSTER), but this collection of photos is honestly so wholesome. The captions are simple and understated and let the photos speak for themselves. And the photos are funny! Dogs humping in the backdrop of someone's professional photoshoot! A rat dressed as a turkey! PEOPLE WHO LOOK WAAAAY TOO SIMILAR TO THEIR PETS. It's comedy gold.
AWKWARD FAMILY PET PHOTOS is the sort of book that cheers you up as soon as you read it. And actually, it was exactly what I needed after reading a pretty dark and depressing thriller about the daughter of a serial killer. This book didn't just deliver on the cuddly cat photos-- there's even things like capybaras and cougars, too.
If you like animals and wholesome memes, you'll love this book. It's a keeper.
FEMINASTY was an incredible book that I bought purely on impulse. While I adore books on feminism, it was the comparison to Lindy West that sold me. Those are some mighty big shoes to fill, since West is an essayist goddess, but Erin Gibson understood the assignment. In this collection of essays, she tackles subjects such as Mike Pence, high heels, Planned Parenthood, teaching abstinence in lieu of sex ed, period politics, and so much more.
I loved this book. It made me laugh out loud multiple times even though the subjects inside were so grim. She's just so darn funny and I agreed with (almost) everything she had to say (CHUNKY NECKLACES ARE AWESOME, GIBSON, I'M SORRY). I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Lindy West, though, as tonally and politically, the two of them are very similar. The unapologetic feminism and ribald commentary were complete wins for me and now I'm thinking I probably have to check out Throwing Shade.
The first time I read this book was about six years ago. Like the author, I also have anxiety and depression, although I have it better managed now than I did at the first time I read this. That awkwardness, that feeling of being out of control (whether real or perceived), and that deluge of worst-case-scenario/totally socially inappropriate thoughts all really resonated with me at the time, as did the humor she used to cope with and make light of her situation. FURIOUSLY HAPPY was the book I needed at the time that I read it and I still think that the author is super brave for speaking up about her experiences to others who might feel the same and are just aching to relate.
This second time around, I'm quite a bit older, so the wonky, zany humor didn't quite work for me as well as it did the first time around. I actually didn't read my status updates for this before beginning, so I thought it was funny how I highlighted some of the same passages as I did the first time (it just goes to show, the more we change, the more we stay the same). This is a pretty broad collection of essays and some of the formats worked better than others. I don't really like her "stand-up" or "joke book" bits where she tries to be funny by sharing random thoughts. Her strengths are in regaling her own past antics, like the scene where she thinks she has a nurse named "Labia" because she couldn't make out the scribbled "Latoya" of the nurse operating on her, or how she went to Australia equipped with a kangaroo and a koala onesie to pose with the aforementioned animals. I just thought that was so bizarre. Ditto her apparent love of taxidermied animals, and her idea to get rid of a cat fur problem by laminating her cats (LOL, what).
What I would love to see from this author is just a bound book of photo dumps with stories and captions. Her photos were some of the best parts of this book and I wish there were more of them. I know, I know, they raise the cost of publishing and make people less likely to buy a physical copy, but oh my god. Her photos are everything. And all I want is for Jenny to go on an adventure with her camera and regale us, as if we were there, of her delightful shenanigans.
I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as I did the first time but I'm still grateful for what it gave me when I read it as a young(er) woman. Also, I laughed so hard I nearly cried at the mental image of her chasing after her cat with a pair of scissors trying to cut off the bell dangling out of its butthole from the toy it ingested and then passed through. Poor cat. Poor Jenny. Poor scissors.
I got an ARC of this from Netgalley ages ago and I remembered really liking it, so when I saw that it was on sale for $4.99, I thought it would be fun to revisit this art (anti-art?) book and see if I'd enjoy it as much the second time around. This book is exactly what it purports to be: it's a collection of incredibly bad taxidermy that is somehow both endearing, horrifying, and sad, all at once. It's divided into various sections of bad, so on the one hand you have works of taxidermy with creepy eyes, and on the other, you have anthropomorphized animals that aren't "bad" so much as they look like escapees from a Walter Potter museum.
I think the pictures are really funny, but it's kind of a morbid sense of "funny" that won't appeal to everyone. My personal favorites were the frog kicking back with a pint (Australia) and the inflated yellow horse that someone inexplicably turned into a ball (China). I feel like that's the weirdest one in here and I wish I had the backstory on it. Why yellow? Why a ball? Why a horse? I have SO MANY QUESTIONS.
In the back is a DIY on how to do your own taxidermy and I thought that section was pretty gross and skimmed over it. I also feel like the author should have really emphasized the fact that working with dead animals introduces the contamination risk for bacteria and the like, so you should make sure to thoroughly scrub any surfaces you worked on and gloves really shouldn't be optional (as the author stated here). Protective eye wear is a good idea, too. A year spent in a biology lab has made me a bit paranoid about that kind of thing.
So this was fine but I didn't like it as much this second time around as I did the first time, even though it did make me chuckle a couple times.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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