Fact, Fiction, or Just Plain Funny?

Hi there!

Welcome back to…well, you know where you are, or you should anyway…and if you don’t perhaps you need to step away from the computer.  Away I say!

What’s with the snarkiness of today’s post?  I know, I know…not my usual style, but neither is the book I’m featuring and well, let’s just say some of it can rub off on you (or rub you the wrong way…take your pick).  Without further fanfare and whoop-de-doo-ing because really, who needs it?  Today’s book of choice...selected work…printed protégé from an author who should have known better (but didn’t because hey, it’s funny AND it sells!)….

The Internet is a Playground:

Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius

By

David Thorne

*WARNING*  All of today’s snarky remarks and slightly grayish humor should be taken with a grain of salt (or sugar if you prefer).  They are intended to be made in good humor in light of the featured title and any offense caused to readers was unintended…unless you laughed, then THAT was intentional.*

Perhaps you’ve been to this author’s website before and witnessed his work first hand…than again, perhaps not.  Hey, I don’t know what you do all day? To gain a little insight on him, in his own words (from the ARC back cover bio)…”..he reads too much, generally exceeds others’ tolerances, and listens to Linkin Park.  He stays up too late, drinks too much coffee, smokes too much, hates getting up in the morning, and has offspring who thinks he doesn’t know what he has been up to when he deletes his Internet history.”

Yeah…that sounds about right…or at least it does once you’ve read his work.  This is not a book to be taken seriously (hence the Humor genre in which it resides) but it is a book to be taken one sip at a time much like a dose of ill tasting medicine…you know it’s good for you, but it doesn’t change the fact that it can taste like the drippings from an oil pan.  There are many topics covered within ranging from the benign to the OMG-you-did-not-just-write-about-that.  

“Bill’s Guide to Everything on the Internet” is a condensed version of our multitude of social, search and shopping outlets with a penchant for the KISS method (stands for “Keep It Simple…Sally – well, in polite circles it is…) of description.  Are they accurate?  Some are (surprisingly) but mostly it’s just for kicks…or is it?  (dun dun dunnnnn) Jetting forward some dozen pages we unearth “Ten Jobs I Would Rather Have Than Mine” that reveals the particular wonders of one day becoming a Fortune Cookie Writer (if you get a message from the future about a robot invasion in your next one…you know he met this aspiration) as well as a Forest Fire Lookout (though I’d be scared if he achieved this one…O-O), and everything in between (well not everything because then it would be called “A Million Jobs I’d Rather Have….”).  Perhaps my favorite “conversation” in the collection is actually the first one you encounter about an overdue balance, an inability (or blatant refusal) to pay, and a drawing of a spider.  LOL…I’m chuckling as I recall it right now…and getting strange looks from a passerby.  *ahem*



Author David Thorne



Overall, a fun and funny filled read that I understood about 50% of the time…sorry, not everyone’s humor level revolves around a conversation about what type of monkey would be most useful.  Yeahhhh.  Scariest part?  The introduction lists that the email conversations included…are all…verbatim.  O-O  I’ll let you digest that for a minute.  *tick*tock*tick*tock*  Might make you a little more wary the next time you send something out into the virtual black hole we call the Web.  Anywho…recommended for older teens through adult readers.  There is some questionable humor and offensive language, so it’s best to keep this one away from the kiddos.  Just tell them the spider on the front will come to life if they touch it….

This little beauty was released in 2010 from Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin Group USA, and won via Shelf Awareness. (THANKS!)  To pick up your own bright and shiny (okay, black and new?) copy of this book, visit a local bookstore near you or if you prefer, one of the multiple strands of the Web dangling before your eyes (okay, not literally…but pull up Google and believe me, they’ll dangle).  For more information on the author or publisher, feel free to click on the links embedded throughout the post…I promise, they won’t lead anywhere questionable…well, not too anyway.

Until next time…happy whatever-it-is-you-think-you’re-doing (...and happy reading!).

^_^