Book #10 (Yes that's right "TEN") Completed! "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" by Tucker Max

In honor of getting to my tenth book completed for the year, I find it fitting that this would be the book that we celebrated with on this milestone of reading excellence. The author, Tucker Max is a writer who graduated from the University of Chicago and went on to complete his JD degree from Duke University. For those who are not academically inclined, these are two pretty damn good schools so the boy is not necessarily a complete moron, thus giving me hope for this book.

Hope is what started me into the pages of this book. It is a collection of autobiographical stories Tucker Max has put together over several years and has chronicled on his website tuckermax.com. These are, what I would guess, the most popular or funniest stories from his website. Ok fair...I'll go along. Anyway, Tucker is a complete and utter megalomaniac and thinks of no one but himself (I found this to be a fairly redeeming quality starting out), drinks like a fish, and is more often than not going home with a different girl for every day of the week. Again, this all sounded very promising!

When I started the book, it was drop dead hilarious to me. I especially enjoyed his story about the first time he went to Las Vegas. I laughed and laughed. Mit thought I was crazy! It really was just that funny to me. And my dear God his drinking exploits and the college days stories are just amazing. It was definitely on the road to getting five "vroom's" on the rating scale.

But a funny thing happened about the midpoint of the book....it became sad. The material was not sad and the stories were all still the same but it became more and more apparent that Tucker Max was not this really awesome guy that it would be cool to hang out with but rather someone you would probably hate in the first 15 minutes of meeting him. Yes he can drink a lot and yes he is popular with women, but by his own admission the women who are into him must have emotional problems because he is such an a**hole. I began to feel sorry for the people who he affected by his childish antics and pity him because it really seemed that he was looking for something in himself that he could not find and therefore was filling the void with booze and girls.

I really don't know. I finished the book in such a "wow your life sounds cool on the surface but it really sucks" kind of mood. The book is horribly objectifying to women so I don't know if that is a selling point or a breaking point for you. I assume that probably has something to do with what gender you are. Also, if you are offendable, this is not the book for you. "You don't believe all of that Mother's Against Drunk Driving propaganda do you..." is a direct quote from the book where he is insulting some innocent guy at a hockey game.

Do you remember, for like the 5 minutes of time back in the 1990's, when it was popular to hear those tapes that people made of prank phone calls? Yeah if your name is Bobbby Jo and you distill your own corn liquor then you probably think those are still funny but for the rest of the world, that had it's time and place and it was quickly throw aside. "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" is pretty much the same as that.

I will say however I very likely will read his next book "A**hole's finish first". I thumbed threw a copy at Barnes and Noble during the holidays and it seemed very funny and this is why when I saw this book at the Goodwill I thought I would give it a shot. I know, I am a hypocrite.

So I give this book:

Vroom, Vroom, VRo (2 1/2 "Vroom's" on the motorcycle scale of awesomeness).

Next up - the review you probably read before this of "The Name of the Wind"