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A review by rorycb
Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches by John Hodgman
4.0
To be fair, I was probably thinking - this is a three star book - about 2/3 through. But then the last few chapters charmed the extra star out of me.
After seeing John Hodgman's hilarious appearance on, funnily enough, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah promoting this book, he'd convinced me that this was something I wanted to read. I wasn't disappointed, with me finding some of the early passages so funny, my partner was subjected to my reading them out loud to her. The part on "lake clams" one memorable example.
But it's in the closing chapters that the gently humorous and whimsical storytelling elevate into something profound and affecting. So as I close the book I feel I could easily open it again, to return to "Vacationland" straight away.
After seeing John Hodgman's hilarious appearance on, funnily enough, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah promoting this book, he'd convinced me that this was something I wanted to read. I wasn't disappointed, with me finding some of the early passages so funny, my partner was subjected to my reading them out loud to her. The part on "lake clams" one memorable example.
But it's in the closing chapters that the gently humorous and whimsical storytelling elevate into something profound and affecting. So as I close the book I feel I could easily open it again, to return to "Vacationland" straight away.