stonyplanet premier book review issue
As I mentioned in my last post, I got a book in the mail recently and I'm supposed to review it on my blog. So here we go: it gets a solid "eh."
The book is called "Mixtionary: Mixed-up modern words for the mixed-up modern world." Remember Rich Hall's "Sniglets?" These are like those, only those were pretty funny. These just feel like a cute gimmick pushed to it's furthest reaches. Combining words, like "complainer" and "maniac" to get "complainiac" is clever, but a whole book of that junk is just annoying.
Worst of all, it bills itself as "modern," but really most of the jokes are old news and based on weird gender stereotyping. There are, for example, six different made-up words about shoes, all for women who are obsessed with shoes. (E.g.: "shoeru" = shoe + guru: someone with good taste in shoes who you go to for shoe advice.) And several words describing self-involved men, men who can't commit, men who won't propose, men who don't measure up: it's like a bad Joan Rivers routine and certainly doesn't feel modern.
And as I mentioned, it feels like a gimmick stretched past capacity. As you read, you get the sense that the authors spent a lot of time smoking weed and egging each other on to come up with more. Many of them feel more than forced and some are outright cheats. "Shoeism" combines "shoe" and "ism." What? "Ism" isn't even a word, it's a suffix. You could add "ism" to practically any word and get the same result. ("Shoeism," by the way, is a religious devotion to fine footwear.)
Whatever. Anything good about this book? It's got a nice size (about the same size and shape as a c.d. case) and the colors are good (teal and mango). The drawings inside (didn't I mention that it's illustrated?) are kind of cute, especially the one on page 22 that appears to depict two little gay boys making out at Thanksgiving dinner. That was my favorite part.
Oh well. Thanks for sending me a free book, people. Sorry I didn't like it very much. Hope that doesn't effect my chances of getting more free stuff in the future...
The book is called "Mixtionary: Mixed-up modern words for the mixed-up modern world." Remember Rich Hall's "Sniglets?" These are like those, only those were pretty funny. These just feel like a cute gimmick pushed to it's furthest reaches. Combining words, like "complainer" and "maniac" to get "complainiac" is clever, but a whole book of that junk is just annoying.
Worst of all, it bills itself as "modern," but really most of the jokes are old news and based on weird gender stereotyping. There are, for example, six different made-up words about shoes, all for women who are obsessed with shoes. (E.g.: "shoeru" = shoe + guru: someone with good taste in shoes who you go to for shoe advice.) And several words describing self-involved men, men who can't commit, men who won't propose, men who don't measure up: it's like a bad Joan Rivers routine and certainly doesn't feel modern.
And as I mentioned, it feels like a gimmick stretched past capacity. As you read, you get the sense that the authors spent a lot of time smoking weed and egging each other on to come up with more. Many of them feel more than forced and some are outright cheats. "Shoeism" combines "shoe" and "ism." What? "Ism" isn't even a word, it's a suffix. You could add "ism" to practically any word and get the same result. ("Shoeism," by the way, is a religious devotion to fine footwear.)
Whatever. Anything good about this book? It's got a nice size (about the same size and shape as a c.d. case) and the colors are good (teal and mango). The drawings inside (didn't I mention that it's illustrated?) are kind of cute, especially the one on page 22 that appears to depict two little gay boys making out at Thanksgiving dinner. That was my favorite part.
Oh well. Thanks for sending me a free book, people. Sorry I didn't like it very much. Hope that doesn't effect my chances of getting more free stuff in the future...
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 11:01 PM
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