bethgee's review against another edition
3.0
Hilarious, simple, brain-candy fun. Good super-quick summertime read.
alfajirikali's review
4.0
Some great vignettes! My favorites were: "What I Would Be Thinking If I Were Billy Joel...", "A Series of Letters to a Squirrel", "Join our Club", A College Application Essay to Harvard...Who Has Absolutely No Chance of Getting Accepted", Erotic Fiction: The Elevator", "Using the Socratic Method to Determine What It Would Take for Me to Voluntarily Eat Dog Shit for the Rest of My Life", "Testing the Infinite Monkey Probability Theorem", and many more. Most of the stories appeal to appreciators of dorky humor, though some are also incorporate a certain amount of mean-spirited humor.
missprint_'s review
2.0
My Custom Van and 50 other Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face came to my attention when a patron at the library checked it out. In the tradition of David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, this book is a series of humorous essays written by Michael Ian Black--an actor you might know from MTV's "I Love the . . . " series or, like me, from his hilarious character on the TV show "Ed."
Either way, I thought Black was funny and decided to give the book a gander myself. Although the last essay is called "In Conclusion: A First Draft of the Acceptance Speech I Plan to Give Upon Receiving Some Kind of Important Literary Prize for Writing This Book" I feel comfortable in saying that Black did not write this book for the accolades it would (or would not) receive. All of the praise on the back of the book comes from other comedians who, no doubt, Black knows through his own work as a comedian. There is nothing wrong with that, but it might explain the irreverent tone to this book and some of the, shall we say, less than tasteful essays.
Some of the essays are really funny. I particularly enjoyed Black's list of his top fifty new year's resolutions, especially since it included resolutions like these:
10. Go deep undercover. Even if it's not for any particular purpose.
Just infiltrate some organization. Any organization at all.
11. Learn typesetting and harmonica.
On the other hand, some of the essays did not appeal to my sense of humor. Maybe, the fault there lies with me. I mean, why would essays like "Why I Used a Day-Glo Magic Marker to Color My Dick Yellow" or "A Series of Letters to the First Girl I Ever Fingered" appeal to me? What I'm getting at is this might be one of those books where guys might be more predisposed to like all of it. Or maybe I'm a prude.
Black has some funny moments, he is a comedian after all, and a lot of the essays are genuinely amusing. The problem I come back to whenever I think about My Custom Van is that reading it felt a lot like work. I've run into this problem before with books of humorous essays. Part of the fault lies with me and my (now firmly established) opinion that humorous essays are better left as surprises sprinkled through anthologies than collected all together in one volume. But I think part of the problem also lies with the authors and their vaguely offensive essays. A book touted as "mind-blowing" and funny shouldn't feel like a chore to read if it's done properly
Either way, I thought Black was funny and decided to give the book a gander myself. Although the last essay is called "In Conclusion: A First Draft of the Acceptance Speech I Plan to Give Upon Receiving Some Kind of Important Literary Prize for Writing This Book" I feel comfortable in saying that Black did not write this book for the accolades it would (or would not) receive. All of the praise on the back of the book comes from other comedians who, no doubt, Black knows through his own work as a comedian. There is nothing wrong with that, but it might explain the irreverent tone to this book and some of the, shall we say, less than tasteful essays.
Some of the essays are really funny. I particularly enjoyed Black's list of his top fifty new year's resolutions, especially since it included resolutions like these:
10. Go deep undercover. Even if it's not for any particular purpose.
Just infiltrate some organization. Any organization at all.
11. Learn typesetting and harmonica.
On the other hand, some of the essays did not appeal to my sense of humor. Maybe, the fault there lies with me. I mean, why would essays like "Why I Used a Day-Glo Magic Marker to Color My Dick Yellow" or "A Series of Letters to the First Girl I Ever Fingered" appeal to me? What I'm getting at is this might be one of those books where guys might be more predisposed to like all of it. Or maybe I'm a prude.
Black has some funny moments, he is a comedian after all, and a lot of the essays are genuinely amusing. The problem I come back to whenever I think about My Custom Van is that reading it felt a lot like work. I've run into this problem before with books of humorous essays. Part of the fault lies with me and my (now firmly established) opinion that humorous essays are better left as surprises sprinkled through anthologies than collected all together in one volume. But I think part of the problem also lies with the authors and their vaguely offensive essays. A book touted as "mind-blowing" and funny shouldn't feel like a chore to read if it's done properly
clusterkenbooks's review
3.0
Very dry, and a whole lot of fun. As with any collection, not all of them are laugh out loud hilarious. Two of my favorites of the bunch would have to be "What Would I Be Thinking if I Were Billy Joel..." and ""Why I Used a Day-Glo Magic Marker to Color My Dick Yellow."
srturner's review
3.0
Sarah Silverman has a blurb on the back that reads some like: "good to read on the pooper". I have to agree. The essays can be very funny if read in short bursts. The author's tone became less funny after reading more than one or two essays at a time. However picking up the book after a day or two inevitably caused a belly laugh.
bevviesandbooks's review
3.0
This is the most ridiculous book I've ever read. Michael Ian Black has a weird brain.
tessypie's review
5.0
HILARIOUS! I found myself laughing out loud at what can only be described as "off-the-wall" and "zany".
literallykristen's review
1.0
So sad, I only got about 50 pages in and I just couldn't do it. I was looking forward to this because I though Michael Ian Black was really funny on I love the 80s etc. This book was not what I was expecting and it just wasn't for me. =(