Douchebag Roulette by Marie Simas

This book sounded really promising.  The title alone made me chuckle - Douchebag Roulette by Marie Simas.  Heh.  Douchebag.  One of my favorite words, in all it's variations.  The book was billed as a compilation of humor essays with mature humor and some sexual content.  Awesome!  Count me in!  I'm a big fan of the humor essay genre (see my much published love for David Sedaris) and I don't shy away from the raunchy.  I am no blushing schoolgirl.

The book arrived and much to my dismay, it was only 60 pages.  That's little more than a pamphlet.  There were a mere 11 essays included.  Some were as short as 2 pages long.  So my first thought was, "Why bother?"  Why bother with publishing such a small compilation?  Why not wait until you have more material to fill out the book?  But what do I know?  I'm not a published author.

And then I began reading the essays and I realized it wasn't just the book that wasn't fully developed.  None of the essays were fully fleshed out.  It was like the author had the bare bones of a story but never elaborated or created the depth needed to draw a reader in completely.  In my humble opinion, I feel she really could have benefited from a good writers workshop to bounce the stories off throughout the writing process.  (For those of you who may not be authors or English majors, writers workshops are groups of peers and/or writing professors to whom you read your work and they comment, criticize and suggest revisions as needed.)

As for the humor, some of the essays were mildly funny.  Some weren't funny at all.  Simas just appeared to be trying way too hard to be edgy or shocking.  Oooo, she's talking about one night stands and recreational drug use.  Shocking!  Oh no, she's had weird sexual encounters.  Appalling!  Meh.  It all just felt superficial and a bit disingenuous.  A post-Sex and the City tell-all that wasn't really telling anything all that interesting.

One story - the last story - called "Dirty Wal Mart Bingo" was the exception to the rest.  Genuinely funny with a heart warming final twist, the story almost redeemed the entire collection.  It left me with a positive outlook on the book but feeling cheated that the other stories weren't more like the last.

I'm going to give Douchebag Roulette by Marie Simas two bows.  It wasn't quite unreadable but it also wasn't good.  And at only 60 pages, I would be pissed if I had paid for it.  Which leads me to the following:   in accordance with FTC guidelines, I must disclose that I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for a review published on my blog.  That's all for tonight, fellow book nerds.  Until next time, happy reading!