*note: this book was so bad, I had to post this review – NJ*
“If you’ve read one story, you’ve read them all. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is 300+ pages of a redundant play-by-play of the same scenario: protagonist gets blackout drunk, typically pukes or craps himself, gets laid. I say ‘protagonist’ and not ‘Tucker’ because though the author claims these stories are true, there’s no way in Hell they are. Sure, there is some semblance of truth to these stories, but many of the details are impossible. But that’s not the worst strike against this book. The worst strike is the writing itself. Whoever edited this book (Ah, I’ll go ahead and say it: Jeremie Ruby-Strauss) needs to be fired post-haste. To allow switched tenses in the same paragraph over and over again is clearly not artistic license, because the author is not that good of a writer, but only one thing: bad writing. Then there’s the fact the author only a few times describes with any sense of detail what a person looks like or what the environment looks like; girls are ‘hot’ faceless mirages with ‘big tits’ and everything takes place in a ‘bar’ or ‘club.’ Those are just a few examples among many. As for the bigger picture, let’s go deeper. It’s a shame the author, who is clearly intelligent with a few noble intellectual pursuits, uses those two tools as weapons to pursue his sociopathic aims without regard to anyone or anything except, as he states, personal gratification. The author claims, ‘I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world.’ That’s like saying Hitler contributed to humanity because he wrote Mein Kampf, except for one major difference: Hitler’s a better writer. The protagonist claims, ‘I’m awesome,’ and other sycophantic congratulatory statements, and this comes off as funny to the half-wit frat boys and cute to the Hannah Montana fans that occupy most sorority houses, but it waxes dumb and immature to anyone over the age of twenty-three. Is the author therefore holding up a giant mirror to show everyone the new American culture of Dumb? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Yet the fact this book is a New York Times Bestseller is definitely a reflection of such; if not, it’s clearly a sign of the manipulation of The New Dumb. The protagonist/author claims he’s committed himself to writing. I challenge him to do so. This will require an immense amount of reading and writing, otherwise the author will continue writing what amounts to grocery lists. But if this is what our young culture likes to read (which isn’t surprising in this age of half-literate twenty-somethings who only understand the hyphenated language of txt msging ), then Yahweh, Muhammed, Buddha, Shiva, and Rocky Balboa save us all. LOL.
If you enjoy reading about a character who’s had everything provided for him (money, education, way too much free time—he laments the multiple divorces and marriages of his parents as being the reason he’s an asshole, but how lame—this is the 21st century, who hasn’t come from a broken home?), then this book is for you. Be warned: you will find no poetry here—in the words, the experience, nothing. And as for the claim—’My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole’—get it right; ‘Tucker’ is not an asshole, he’s just a jackass.
Perhaps this diatribe has made you want to read the book. Perhaps you now want to sleep with ‘Tucker Max.’ Go ahead, join the herd. I hear the beer is ‘rodeo cold’ in Idiot Hell.”
- Nate Jordon -
what do you really think? you can be honest! nice riding with you… i am feeling it!
have fun in tx. or arkansas or wherever you are going for the holi-daze!
kyle