Friday, August 29, 2008

A Tutorial on How NOT to Write a Book Review

I know the internet is the great equalizer of our time. There are no gatekeepers. Anyone can write anything, no matter how dull, pointless, or just plain dumb. Within the world of social networking sites, idiots are likely to pop up, but you can always turn the down as friends.

However, I have a higher standard for Goodreads, the social networking site for people who actually read books. I expect people who spend enough time reading to warrant creating a Goodreads profile to at least comment on their reading selections with some intelligence.

But this is the internet, and I should never have expected so much. Here are my favorite stupid comments on some of my latest book choices:

On Naomi Klein's No Logo
"Ok ok ok, I know the hype surrounding this book. Your dreddy activist friend keeps recommending this to you. That dirty hippy that is a total vagabond is doing the same.

Well, what sold me on this book was an image taken from a busy street with all of the logo's removed using Photoshop. Striking.

And the book is long, interesting and at times redundant. Naomi Klein is hot, first of all, but mainly she's right. Advertising ruined the planet. Basically."


On David Kuo's Tempting Faith
"Zzzzzz...*snort*...*cough* *cough*...zzzzz..."


On David Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames
"1. I HATE men who don't do the dishes, I hate it when they sit around and let women do the dishes. David Sedaris doesn't do the dishes and I am glad, because it shows I can hatefully resent slash stereotype gay and straight men equally, and therefore I'm probably not homophobic, although I probably am slightly androgynist, oopsies! But not being homophobic cancels that out, right?

I also HATE IT when a man, like say someone I know, does the dishes as a little something extra to show his wife how much he loves her. ARE YOU SERIOUS? You love her enough to ::GASP:: do the dishes???? OH MY GOD! What a man!

2. I always wonder if David Sedaris would be a fun person to hang out with. I mean, would he just be lame and totally obsessed with creating more stories about his lameness so he could mine his life for better (a k a more pathetic) material? It used to bother me that there might be people in the world who were cooler and better and awesomer on paper than they would be in real life."


More to come.

2 comments:

A Bookish Woman said...

Ew. I second your opinion. Stupidity and the Internet are sometimes a lethal combination.

Joyf said...

Hahhaa but the stupidity amuses me so much!

Joel once said something about most blogs being bullshit. I shot him down by saying that 1) mine and my friends certainly weren't, and 2) the originality of the bullshit never ceases to amaze me. And truly, it doesn't - on goodreads, facebook, or elsewhere.