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Title: It Gets Worse: A Collection of Essays by Shane Dawson
Details: Copyright 2016, Simon and Shuster, Inc
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "Too fat for college? So close to your mother that you make people uncomfortable? Desperate enough for a date that you turned to Craigslist? Don't worry! It gets worse!
Shane Dawson shared some of his best and worst experiences in I Hate Myselfie, the critically acclaimed book that secured his place as a gifted humorist and keen observer of contemporary culture. Fans felt as though they knew him after devouring the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal bestseller. They were right... almost.
In this new collection of original personal essays, Shane goes even deeper, sharing never-before-revealed stories from his life, giving readers a no-holds-barred look at moments both bizarre and relatable, from cult-like Christian after-school activities, dressing in drag, and losing his virginity, to hiring a psychic, clashes with celebrities, and coming to terms with his bisexuality. Every step of the way, Shane maintains his signature brand of humor, proving that even the toughest breaks can be funny when you learn to laugh at yourself.
It Gets Worse an inspiring, intelligent, and brutally honest collection of true stories by a YouTube sensation-turned one of the freshest new voices out there."
Why I Wanted to Read It: This was recommended to me because the author discusses his coming out as bisexual.
How I Liked It:
Death of the author! You've heard it used, but what does it actually mean? In this case, it's removing the author from the work. But how does that even work in a memoir, let alone a memoir like this? I'll explain!
But first! If you're not familiar with him via his once-YouTube following or his apparently bestselling first book, Shane Dawson had a hardscrabble childhood of poverty before achieving staggering YouTube fame (the kind that comes with altering your and your family's financial status) in his twenties. I have not read his first book, but this book is essays throughout his life, from not fitting in in childhood to not fitting in in middle school to struggling in high school, to dropping out of college and finding fame. The stories range from light (he reflects on a truly awful first car) to deeper (struggling with eating disorders as well as his bisexuality, he manages to somewhat find peace).
The name "Shane Dawson" sounded vaguely familiar, but I know I'd never seen one of his videos (or his movies) nor had I read his first book. No, I thought I remembered people criticizing his work in various corners of social media. But I wasn't sure, so I put off that notion until I'd finished the book.
Memoir by humorous essay has existed for decades, but been brought to a new art form by David Sedaris, considered the gold standard of the genre. While seemingly everyone is trying their hand at it, the most successful counts among its ranks Jenny Lawson, Samantha Irby, and professional David Sedaris impersonator, Augusten Burroughs (yes, his first and most successful book was a novel-length memoir, but his later books have been essays), but those that copied the Sedaris formula and had it go not as successfully are far more common, as you'd imagine.
Dawson falls into the category of someone not known for book-writing who is trying this format. Other celebrities have gone this route with varying success. But usually, if you're a writer for teleplay, it takes some work to adapt you to book form. So how does Dawson fare?
Dawson is trying, really, really, really hard to be funny. He throws every objectionable aspect of anything at the story (without questioning why it's objectionable in the first place, which has gotten him into some trouble) in the hopes of making it funny. And yet? It's not really funny.
While the back of the book touts Dawson's "self-deprecating and outrageous humor... deserves comparison to David Sedaris" by Publishers Weekly and publisher promotional info online boasts comparisons to both Jenny Lawson's and Augusten Burroughs's respective best known works, oddly the person to whom I compared Shane Dawson to the most was John Waters.
John Waters is a writer of books, yes. He's also published several books of funny short-form essays (long before David Sedaris, who considers himself a Waters fan). But generally, if you're talking about John Waters, you're talking about his film career as a writer and director and his lovable forays into truly "bad taste."
Waters's films contain body humor, gross-out humor, outrageousness, references/jokes about sexual violence and abuse (including child abuse), generally politically loaded controversial subjects (like abortion and the death penalty), and bigotry (although his tone has generally been to mock bigots, Waters himself has made some unfortunate choices in his films: some somewhat understandable given the era, all still not acceptable and in some places, he'd probably agree). In that, he is similar to Shane Dawson.
In everything else though, he is not. Waters's work is (mostly) hilarious, and truly outrageous and shocking, for various reasons, across over half a century. Waters isn't just throwing out whatever he can to be shocking, he's framing it deliberately and carefully to elicit the most laughs and/or shock from audiences. Not to mention that it's almost always all, well... kind-spirited. Also, there's a humility in Waters's work and in his memoirs and when he writes about himself that, to put simply, Shane Dawson doesn't come anywhere near.
How do you even describe that kind of nuance? I'm not sure I can. But early on in the book, the author is trying.
I also remember how big of a deal it was when someone at school bullied me or called me names. I was called fat, ugly, gay, momma’s boy, albino, man tits, and once in a while rape baby. I don’t quite understand that one, but then again, I kinda do. (pg 3)
It's not a "I'm-going-to-hell-for-laughing-at-that-j
One night when I was around eleven years old, my brother Jerid and his friends decided to throw a party while my mom was working late. I was a goody-goody and was seconds away from calling my mom and ratting him out until they decided to order Chinese food and I would have sold my fat soul for some orange chicken. I had no moral code. After we ate pounds of greasy GMO-filled cat meat, my brother’s creepy friend whipped out a VHS tape and everyone started freaking out with excitement. (pg 9)
Yup, the old "East Asians eat your pets!" stereotype that King of the Hill, a well-crafted sitcom but not exactly known for its progressive takes, skewered almost two decades before this book was published and it was actually funny.
Things, uh, really take off when the author is spotted struggling in middle school by a curious teacher he pegs with some sort of mental illness, who invites him into a club.
She either had a room full of kids or a brain full of different personalities, but it was still better than sitting on a school floor with gum stuck to my ass. I got up and went into her classroom, and to my surprise there were real live kids! Although, I’m guessing she had multiple personalities too. That wig was
definitely hiding some demons. (pg 23)
"Multiple personalities"? Really? In 2016? That joke would be a bit tired in the 1990s.
He finds out it's a special education club, wherein he meets a cute girl on whom he develops a crush, Cary, who is neither special needs nor in any way disabled, but there for her "mentally handicapped" (the term used in the book) brother. He also unfortunately meets a rough kid named Andre who punches people in intimate places and bites (and who also has an enormous phallus, something even Dawson's mother remarks on in his telling, which given that this is supposed to be middle school has layers of trying-too-hard gross).
ME: I’m not retarded!
CARY: What?
ME: I know. I mean, this shirt is retarded, but I’m not retarded. And I know I’m super fat, but I’m not like “retardedly fat,” you know? I’m like...normal fat.
CARY: You should probably stop talking.
ME: Not that there’s anything wrong with being retarded! I have retarded people in my family! I mean, now that I think about it, I probably got some retarded genes passed down to me. I definitely have been told I have
a retarded person’s forehead.
CARY: Can I talk to you in the hallway real quick?
I could tell I had messed up. Her face was red and it was squinched in anger in a way that reminded me of the times my mom discovered I’d tried on her lingerie while she was at work. I was in BIG TROUBLE... and also had therapy again on Monday.
Cary dragged me into the hallway and closed the door tightly behind her so none of the students could hear.
CARY: What the fuck is wrong with you??
ME: Do you want a list or...
CARY: Do you know how offensive the word “retarded” is?
ME: A lot?
CARY: Ya, a lot! And you said it like thirteen times. And what the hell do you mean by a retarded person’s forehead?
I lifted my hair up.
CARY: Oh...Ya, I guess I can see that.
ME: I’m sorry! I was just nervous! I really do know... mentally challenged people, and I would never want to hurt their feelings. I just couldn’t shut up, and you’re so... so...
CARY: If you say “retarded,” I’m gonna pull an Andre and punch you in the tits.
ME: I thought he punched in the crotch?
CARY: Oh, maybe that’s something he only does to me, then.
ME: I don’t blame him. I’d punch you in the tits all day if I could.
She looked creeped out. Probably should have just said “retarded” again.(pgs 24 and 25)
After hanging out with her for that lunch period, I decided that I wanted to join the club. Mainly because it sounded like a really cool way to give back, but also I wanted to see Cary get punched in the tit by her buddy so I could jerk off to it later. This was before Internet porn existed, so don’t judge me. (pgs 26 and 27)
Sexual assault jokes! And he's joking about getting off to a friend's sexual assault. WOW, HOW SHOCKING AND EDGY AND IN 2016 OF ALL PLACES.
CARY: Hey, Shane! Hey, Andre!
ME: Hey! Where’s your buddy?
CARY: She’s on the dance floor. I can’t get her off.
ME: Isn’t she... deaf?
CARY: Ya! She feels the vibrations of the beat through her feet!
I looked over at Cary’s buddy and she looked like she was in an old-school Britney video. Her arms were popping, her hips were shaking, her head was whipping. She was a true pop icon reincarnated. Of course the deaf girl was a
better dancer than me, and my buddy had a bigger dick than me. Special ed kids: 2. Me: 0. (pg 34)
Yikes.
The author is seemingly unaware of what year it may be, though (more on that later) as he uses phrases that are sometimes decades out of date, and after awhile, it almost seems purposeful.
Our cries were so ugly you would have thought we were two cripples who’d just had an Extreme Home Makeover. (pg 61)
"Cripples"? Seriously? More on that later.
But even with the author trying so very hard to be "offensive", something he apparently automatically equates with "funny", we get more than a bit of a feel for his memoir voice. And largely? It's about how great he is.
He frames his story like a success story, and in some ways, of course it is. Abject childhood poverty to an unprecedented YouTube fame and millions of dollars in your twenties is a success (although it has less to do with the author's talent and tenacity and pure dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time). The author clearly didn't like himself much as a child (the slew of fat jokes are apparently acceptable since they're coming from the author to himself, but he's no longer fat, and also had a eating disorder) and struggled to make friends and now (or rather, six years ago) was so famous that he kept getting recognized (at least, according to him) on a gay dating app.
But there's a way to tell a story without beating the audience over the head with how great you are. And frankly the author's storytelling skills in general are pretty poor. Each and every character has the author's distinct phrases and expressions and noises ("Ya") and while this works with some authors, it doesn't here.
Take for instance when he accidentally falls in with a Christian cult at his elementary school by the promise of snacks. A friend he'd made that happened to be Hindu, Saksa, is insulted and constantly demeaned by the youth leaders who are also anti-gay. When Saksa stands up for herself and leaves, of course the author has to have his own ten-year-old moment to shine.
Saksa stormed off the bus. As I went to follow her one of the hairy-necked
guys grabbed me by the shoulder.
NECK-HAIR GUY 1: You can be friends with her Shane, but just remember, everything she says is a lie. It’s not her fault; it’s her parents’ fault for teaching her those things. But as her friend it’s now your job to make her
realize that Jesus is the only way.
ME: You know what, the only reason I started coming to this stupid bus was because you guys were passing out treats and had surprisingly comfortable seating for a bus, but I’m done. You know what I learned today?
NECK-HAIR GUY 1: That God works in mysterious ways?
ME: No, I learned that I know a lot more about God than you do. God doesn’t judge. God doesn’t make people feel bad for what they believe in. God doesn’t care if you’re gay or not. God is love. That’s all he is. And I know
God made all of us in his image, but he must have fucked up with you guys, ’cause you are the farthest thing from God I have ever seen.
I stormed off the bus and left those hairy freaks speechless. I caught up with Saksa, who was sitting on the street corner looking up at the sky. (pg 136)
Did this really happen? Maybe. Probably not the way he told it. Does it matter? Well, in that it's an obviously fake story or at least significantly altered story to make the author look good, yes. It's annoying.
Incidentally, if you were wondering the author's take on bigoted material and examining your own bigotries, he notes
I understood that a lot of people believe every word of the Bible, but from my point of view some of it was clearly outdated. I mean, it was written thousands of years ago. Some of my tweets from two months ago are outdated and need to be deleted. Imagine if Jesus was on Twitter. Do you think he would follow people? Or would we have to only follow him? Ugh, Twitter is SO confusing. (pg 131)
So "outdated". Which is... fine, on its own, really. We want to improve and become better people, so bigotry should be "outdated". But it's a bit concerning that he's stopping short of explicitly calling it wrong or saying he was wrong.
Because really,
To everyone who gets me, thank you. To everyone who doesn’t, thank you too. You give me the motivation to keep succeeding just to piss you off. (pg 226)
SEE, YOU JUST DON'T GET HIM!
Possibly the nadir of this is a chapter written by his mother. He opens the chapter mentioning that it was his mother's dream to be an author, but between multiple jobs and multiple kids, she never had the time and that "as a gift" he would "hand over the final chapter" of the book to her. He told her she could write about whatever she wanted and he wouldn't change a thing by his mother, his friend, and "now a published author".
And what does his mother write about in her son's book? Is it a funny story from his childhood? Is it about her own dreams of being a writer and sacrificing them? Don't be ridiculous! It's about how (wait for it!) amazing her son is and how much people love him. What else?
She describes a magical experience of seeing her son onstage and being received by adoring fans in high school.
Nearly ten years have passed since that night at Lakewood High School, and every time I see a crowd gather around Shane and express such love, I think of that special evening that would forever change our lives. I’ve met so many of Shane’s fans since he started on YouTube, and every one of them is more full of love than the last.
Granted the first time I was recognized in public was not such a lovely experience. One day I was walking around the mall and was stopped by an angry-looking woman. She pointed at the shirt I was wearing, which happened to have Shane’s face on it, and she said, “I know who you are, and I think your son is disgraceful!!” I stood there in shock for a moment. Then after a few seconds I started laughing and quickly texted Shane. “I got recognized, son!! I’m so excited!!” I still have my Shane Dawson T-shirt, and every time I wear it I think about that lady and get the biggest smile on my face. One person’s “disgraceful” is another person’s "HERO." (pg 233)
A crass person might suppose that Dawson learned his attitude about himself (that he can do no wrong) from his mother, clearly. And obviously parents should be proud of their children.
But "HERO"?! Seriously?!
Also, do we think the "disgraceful" lady happened? Maybe. But probably the author's mother is stretching the truth the same way her son does, favorably to his image (seriously, how many disapproving school marms in the 2000s/2010s would recognize the latest YouTube "star"?).
Is there anything redeeming about this book? Not really. He gives some insight into YouTube fame and the history of it:
Five years later, the closest I had come to getting a blow job was sticking my dick in a pool drain and getting it stuck. At twenty-two years old I was ready to finally get intimate with someone, and unfortunately I hadn’t kept in touch with Tara, so I had to go elsewhere. It was a Friday night and I was at
a party full of YouTubers, and I definitely wasn’t looking for any potential relationships. This was also before being a YouTuber was “cool” and “glamorous,” so the vibe of the party was a little less Kardashian and a little more Duck Dynasty. There wasn’t a photo booth with cool props to post on your Instagram, and there sure as hell wasn’t a Taco Bell truck with free burritos till three a.m. It was just twenty YouTubers, a bucket full of beer, and lots of people vlogging. It’s what I imagined hell to be like, and all I wanted to do was leave. (pgs 79 and 80)
Incidentally, I know it's a surface comparison, but the Duck Dynasty thing is entirely fabricated. Those are not rednecks, they're millionaires cosplaying as rednecks. Reality TV is shockingly staged!
He takes a date to the mall where he's apparently selling merch:
The next night we decided to go to the mall. While we were walking around we came across a Hot Topic store, and she dragged me in. Back in 2010 I had my own line of shirts in Hot Topic and they were as embarrassing as you’d expect. Lots of weird images of my face, way too many colors, and one shirt that said “SHANE DAWSON IS MY BOYFRIEND.” I’m not sure who thought that was a good idea, considering I was a twenty-two-year-old man and my audience was mostly twelve, but either way, I’m sure today there is a Goodwill with LOTS of “Shane Dawson Is My Boyfriend” shirts. She dragged me inside and ripped one off the wall.
YOUTUBE GIRL: I HAVE to get this!
As she turned around I saw that she was holding up the boyfriend shirt. My heart exploded. Was this her asking to be my girlfriend? Was this her telling me that I’m more than a friend? Was she the only person who had ever wanted to buy one in this store, because there were HUNDREDS left on the wall? All these questions were filling up my brain, and I couldn’t even bring myself to respond. Luckily I was cut off by an employee.
HOT TOPIC GUY: Hey, those are 50 percent off clearance. If you want to just take it, I won’t tell anyone. I’m kinda sick of looking at that guy’s weird face. (pgs 84 and 85)
That last one walks a particularly awkward line: is he going for what it's like to be famous? Or is it meant to be relatable, but how relatable is walking with a date to browse your personal merchandise?
What gives this book any even grain of sand of redeeming value is the author talking about his struggle to understand and accept his bisexuality. Being a marginalized group within a marginalized group has its own struggles and there's never really enough acknowledgement of that.
The author has an awakening while talking to his brother:
JERID: So . . . what’s going on with you, man?
ME: What do you mean?
JERID: You can talk to me about anything, you know that, right?
ME: Ya. Of course.
JERID: So... what’s going on?
I knew where the conversation was going, and I was finally ready to be honest with him. We hadn’t talked about my sexual confusion in fourteen years. Since that cold, dark night in my family’s kitchen. I could feel my heart
racing.
ME: I’m really confused.
JERID: I don’t think you are.
ME: What do you mean?
JERID: You like guys, right?
ME: Ya. But I also like girls.
JERID: So you like both. Who cares?
ME: Well... I just wish I didn’t. I wish I could just be straight. Or gay. It’s so confusing to be in the middle.
JERID: Dude. You can’t think of it that way. You’re lucky. You can love anyone. Your options are doubled.
ME: Ya... I guess.
JERID: You ever been with a guy?
ME: No.
JERID: Go do it. Why the fuck not? You just need to be yourself and not give a fuck what other people think.
He made it sound so easy . . . and maybe it was?
JERID: Think about it this way, when you wake up tomorrow morning, how do you want to live your life? Hiding and ignoring your feelings like you have been forever? Or being yourself?
He was right. I smiled at him and he smiled back. It was the first time in a long time I didn’t feel confused. I’m bisexual. All the years of thinking that it was a curse or that it was a phase I would grow out of were bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with being open to love in any form. I felt a weight slide off my shoulders, and I started crying. But this time they weren’t tears of pain or fear. They weren’t tears of confusion or self-hatred. They were tears of happiness and the overwhelming feeling of being set free. From that day forward I wanted to live my truth, so I not only told my family and friends but I made a video about my journey to discovering my sexuality and shared it with the world.
This is me and there was no more hiding and there was no turning back. Thank God. (pg 14)
Of course being bisexual isn't being "in the middle" of straight and gay (it's also not a "half" situation by any measure-- you're wholly bisexual), but in a world that erases your existence (and the existence of famous people that happen to be bisexual, so you at least have some kind of frame of reference) it makes sense that that would be a thought you'd later unpack.
Still, he gets plenty wrong on Queer issues.
Remember that Christian cult he encountered in elementary school?
Everything seemed to be going well until one day when the three brothers
taught us a lesson about homosexuality being wrong. This was back in the nineties, so things were much different. There were many people who were outspokenly antigay, and most of them were coming from a Christian mind-
set. Even at age ten, I knew something wasn’t right. (pg 133)
I don't deny at all that there's plenty that changed between the 1990s and 2016 on Queer issues. But there were plenty of people who were outspokenly antigay in 2016 and used Christianity as a reason, and one of them was literally on the Presidential ticket.
I thought talking to a group of ten-year-olds about homosexuality was incredibly over the line. (pg 134)
There is literally nothing wrong with talking to ten-year-olds or kids of any age about homosexuality. This line of thinking is often used by antigay bigots themselves, that it's ""sexualizing"" kids to acknowledge the existence of Queer people. There are kids that have Queer parents, Queer grandparents, a Queer aunt or uncle, or what have you.
Telling kids that homosexuality is against God and they will burn in hell for it is what's incredibly over the line.
I mentioned I was only vaguely familiar with the author's name before I read this book and I purposely avoided looking him up until I was finished the book. I'm not going to quote everything here when you can look it up for yourself (and that's not including the flirting with Infowars and who knows what else), all of which make stuff like his laughing at Mexicans being abused by police (and possibly even being murdered by them) at the Mexican border ("They probably had drugs in their car." pg 151) make sense in a broader context.
I was honestly surprised that this was the author's second book, because it's so raw and amateurish in so many places and had assumed, not really knowing who Shane Dawson is, that he was a not-very-funny YouTuber popular with tweens who laugh at pretty much anything and his attempts at humor were basically attempts at being as shocking as possible and hoping that it would land somewhere, anywhere, with plenty of the author's egotism (not to mention missing the point) along the way. Finding out more about Dawson puts a good amount of his material in this book alone in a considerably uglier light.
Sometimes when a book is bad, not even death of the author can save it.
Notable:
As I walked through campus I took in all the sights around me. I saw hot guys making out with hot girls. I saw ugly guys making out with ugly girls. I even saw an ugly guy making out with a semi-decent girl. There was hope for me! Sure, she had a back brace and what appeared to be face ringworm, but she had a pretty decent body. I took a little break on a bench after walking for what felt like hours and looked down at the map. I was only halfway there! I felt like I was walking around Disneyland, but it was more expensive and the
only ride was a roller coaster of emotions you get when you find out the suicide rate! My chub rub had started to flare back up, and it wasn’t helping that I was wearing jeans. I should have known not to wear denim, but I was
so concerned about looking cool that I ignored my instincts. (pg 63)
"Pretty decent body", ew.
________________________________________
It was a cold winter night in 2012, and I was standing outside on Hollywood
Boulevard in my very unflattering underwear, covered in my own vomit. I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, Shane! I didn’t know you were such a party animal!” I’m not. I’m the opposite of a party animal. I’m a funeral person. I would much rather be surrounded by people crying while a dead person slowly decays in front of them than by a bunch of drunk people constantly asking me if I’m trans. I appreciate the compliment, but no, unfortunately God gave these hips to a man. (pg 97)
Take THAT, trans people! Seriously, what does this even mean.
________________________________________
DRIVE-THRU LADY: Ok, would you like that extra large?
ME: Do you have a glass guard to keep homeless people from stabbing you?
I laughed. She didn’t. (pg 101)
The author has a running, weird vendetta against homeless people throughout this book, portraying anyone unhoused as dangerous, unstable lunatics.
________________________________________
Day one at my new school was pretty terrifying, but what was even more terrifying was that it was the first time I had to walk to get there. I lived close enough that I didn’t need my mom to drop me off, but I had never done it before, and I was scared that someone might try to kidnap me. Then I remembered I wasn’t really kidnapping material. Why would a child molester want a two-hundred-pound ten-year-old who had more armpit hair than he did? So I guess I was pretty safe. (pg 127)
I've already linked to another terrible memoir of essays in this review, so I won't do it again, but I do wonder why the "too ugly to rape/molest/assault" is such a persistent trend, apparently. Ew.
________________________________________
SAKSA: Hi. My name is Saksa.
ME: My name is Shane. You new here too?
SAKSA: Ya. What are you eating? It smells good.
ME: You think so? Most people think it smells like a prostitute’s nail bed.
SAKSA: Well, my family usually cooks up a bowl of fish heads and blends them into a smoothie, so I’m not the best judge of smell.
ME: You drink that?
SAKSA: No, I usually drink chocolate milk. My grandma’s a fan of things that smell like the dump.
ME: My grandma’s a fan of taking dumps that look like chocolate milk, so I guess we have a lot in common! (pg 129)
"A prostitute's nail bed"?
________________________________________
The author is describing a high school teacher who initially encouraged him, but later turned on him.
He took a bite of a soggy fish taco and a drop of tartar sauce fell from his
lip and onto his old-man nipple. Instead of wiping it off with a napkin he rubbed his hand all over it and the chest hair soaked it up. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen in my life but also the most inventive. If
Shark Tank had been on at the time, he would have been a tough one to beat. (pg 212)
This teacher, incidentally, he author describes as in his forties and he "kind of looked like a teenager who had gotten detention twenty-five years ago and had just been dismissed." (pg 211)
So is "forties" "old man" to the author, or is that the way it seemed when he was sixteen or (most likely) the author was inconsistent in his fictionalization and wanted to go for the gross-out joke?
Shane Dawson, incidentally, is currently only six years away from forty.
________________________________________
As a teenager, Dawson manages to get his mother to act in one of his films, with some compromises to her own ethics.
ME: Ok, so randomly scream bad words while you are parking the car.
MOM: Oh, Shaney, I can’t do that. I don’t think God would want me to curse
on camera.
ME: It’s for the movie. You’re the star. Don’t you want to make the movie good?
It was the same conversation I’m assuming some directors have with actresses before a nude scene. I guilted her into doing what I wanted. The scary part is if I tried, she probably would have shown the goods.
MOM: Ok. For the movie! Sorry, God!
ME: That’s the spirit! And ACTION! (pg 216 and 217)
To be fair, this is pre-Harvey Weinstein, but still plenty disgusting.
________________________________________
Some people say high school is the most awkward and humiliating time of your life. Those people must have blocked out middle school, which marks the formative stage between childhood and adolescence, when you don’t quite have acne but you definitely have prepubescent BO that smells like somebody
threw up a Big Mac on a pile of pig shit. The smell that radiated off my twelve-year-old body caused my own mother to keep her distance from me. I remember one night when my mom sat on the other side of the couch while we watched MTV Cribs, which was very out of character for her because that was our favorite show to snuggle up to while we talked about our dream house. (pg 19)
See, he almost had me at the first one and a half sentences, before it went the boring over-the-top gross route.
Final Grade: D-
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