If my dad were as funny as Justin’s, I’d want Two. My review of Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
“You seen my cell phone?…What’s it look like? Like two horses fucking. It’s a phone, son. It looks like a phone.”
“HIDDEN roaming charges? Jesus, Sprint has ‘fucking people’ down to a science, like they practice it in a fucking lab on mice first.”
“Don’t start a story with This is SO funny. Be like saying My dick’s huge before you screw. Even if you’re right you sound like an ass hole.”
The best way to sum up Sh*t my Dad says, by Justin Halpern is to say that its a funny book. And unlike a lot of memoirs, it isn’t trying to force situations that were funny in context to be funny out of context, its just that the author has found something interesting to talk about and talks about it.
The interesting thing, obviously is the shit his dad says. The several quotes above should give you an idea what its like.
The book is an amorphous thing. Its basically short stories built up around quotes.
What Justin’s dad does when Justin is failing math, what Justin’s dad says when he falsifies data during a science experiment, Justin’s dad giving Justin the sex talk in a busy Dennies.
These things may not sound funny but I assure you they are. The dad of the title is just… Witty, brusque, pithy and earthy all at the same time and this combination allows him to say some truly hilarious things.
The book is also a bit of a character study. Don’t get me wrong. This book isn’t a sleeper literary hit, but the Vignets that Halpern has written serve to illustrate a bit about him and a bit about his father.
This is one of three books that’s gotten me to laugh out loud. The other two, if anyone’s interested were Catch Twenty-two and I hope they serve beer in hell. This one is much closer to the latter than the former, although its no where near as raunchy.
My only complaint about this book, and its a miner one, is that the dad of the title gets so much of the limelight, Justin as a character feels a bit thin.
In some ways, this doesn’t matter. The book is about this guys dad saying funny shit, and his son probably isn’t really important in that respect. But for the book to work as a memwar, not just a book of humor, I would have needed just a little more about Justin, perhaps during his college years.
But that’s a miner complaint and mostly the book is hilarious. Its a quick read that made me laugh out loud several times and I highly recommend it to everyone.
Three and a half out of five stars.
The author has a twitter at shitmydadsays. Google it.
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