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1.92 AVERAGE
1.92 AVERAGE
I loved this audiobook. The mixture of strange with information made it highly entertaining. I enjoyed the use of rhyme.
Bob presents as odd and slow, but is highly organised and skilled. The narration added to the entertainment value. I recommend this book if you want something different.
Bob presents as odd and slow, but is highly organised and skilled. The narration added to the entertainment value. I recommend this book if you want something different.
Interesting to listen to the narrators, but it made absolutely no sense to me.
Had this book been read by anyone other than Sean Penn I wouldn't have finished it. The author presents some interesting ideas that probably should have been fleshed out into a longer book. Some of this is interesting stuff, but a lot of times I was scratching my head and wondering where this was all going. High marks for Mr. Penn, not so much for the story.
Short and interesting and funny. This work is getting mostly "WTF?" type of reviews, but I found it timely and engrossing. Though, if it were any longer, perhaps the charm might have worn off.
Not sure I fully got all of it, not being a native American, it can be difficult to follow American political satire, but it was an quick interesting listen and Sean Penn’s narration was really good.
According to Wikipedia, this is the most recent book to be considered the Worst Book Ever Written and that's something I've just got to see for myself.
(added to my to-read shelf Feb 2019, read in March 2019)
All right, so what's the verdict? It is bad. Really bad. But the worst book ever? That's exaggerating. The premise is outlandish but that's more of a selling point than a detriment. The real offense is the language, which is composed of ugly and awkward phrasing so bad it's got to be intentional, as in:
Paired with an extraordinary auditory augmentation efficiency that came to Bob in equal parts handy and haunting (more on that anon), his engineering acumen was unparalleled.
or
Avoiding an escalation of scuffle, the Arabic mono-linguists radioed their dutiful dragoman.
2 stars out of 5. Interestingly the book is about as long as I'd expect a two-hour movie screenplay to be, so I suspect Penn had this idea for a movie initially. But I don't care enough to search out if that's true.
(added to my to-read shelf Feb 2019, read in March 2019)
All right, so what's the verdict? It is bad. Really bad. But the worst book ever? That's exaggerating. The premise is outlandish but that's more of a selling point than a detriment. The real offense is the language, which is composed of ugly and awkward phrasing so bad it's got to be intentional, as in:
Paired with an extraordinary auditory augmentation efficiency that came to Bob in equal parts handy and haunting (more on that anon), his engineering acumen was unparalleled.
or
Avoiding an escalation of scuffle, the Arabic mono-linguists radioed their dutiful dragoman.
2 stars out of 5. Interestingly the book is about as long as I'd expect a two-hour movie screenplay to be, so I suspect Penn had this idea for a movie initially. But I don't care enough to search out if that's true.
This was a weird, weird story with an unsettling protagonist and confusing narrative. At times it is gorgeous, like the conversation about losing ourselves to the darkness or simply creating it. At others, I enjoyed the pure ridiculousness of it all -- I just about died when the helicopter dropped on the house like some kind of Black Hawk Wizard of Oz scenario. Or the Hasidic Jew on the Run in South America was a great scene that ultimately went nowhere.
The language of Bob Honey is very poetic and clearly meant to be listened to. The cutting alliteration and whiplash delivery is fun to listen to, even when I didn't really see what the point was. And that is part of my problem with this book:
I just didn't /get/ a lot of Bob Honey's story. Logically, I put together a loose timeline, and I understand that this isn't supposed to be literal. But what message Pappy Pariah (or more likely Sean Penn) wanted to leave me with is kind of muddled. Am I supposed to root for Bob Honey? Who kills elderly people with a mallet? Am I supposed to root against him?
Seeing as this is an audio formatted book, it is important to discuss the performance: Sean Penn's throaty, mumbly voice is hard to follow at times (especially at the beginning). I did enjoy the cut ins from the "robot voice" and I loved the fourth wall breaking that happened when this voice was called out. The rest of the cast isn't in it much to make note of, but the did an alright job.
It is a short book, taking two and a half hours to listen to. It is fun, and I'll be thinking about this book for a while. But unless you like looking at outrageous situations and political satire, you could probably skip Bob Honey and Just Do Stuff instead.
The language of Bob Honey is very poetic and clearly meant to be listened to. The cutting alliteration and whiplash delivery is fun to listen to, even when I didn't really see what the point was. And that is part of my problem with this book:
I just didn't /get/ a lot of Bob Honey's story. Logically, I put together a loose timeline, and I understand that this isn't supposed to be literal. But what message Pappy Pariah (or more likely Sean Penn) wanted to leave me with is kind of muddled. Am I supposed to root for Bob Honey? Who kills elderly people with a mallet? Am I supposed to root against him?
Seeing as this is an audio formatted book, it is important to discuss the performance: Sean Penn's throaty, mumbly voice is hard to follow at times (especially at the beginning). I did enjoy the cut ins from the "robot voice" and I loved the fourth wall breaking that happened when this voice was called out. The rest of the cast isn't in it much to make note of, but the did an alright job.
It is a short book, taking two and a half hours to listen to. It is fun, and I'll be thinking about this book for a while. But unless you like looking at outrageous situations and political satire, you could probably skip Bob Honey and Just Do Stuff instead.
I find myself scratching my head at the strangeness of it, but also liking the book for that very reason. I happen to enjoy the unusual, especially in literature, but I suspect many readers/listeners will detest this book because it's not easily understood. That does not diminish the description offered of the current political/social climate and particularly of one of the candidates.
Reading this made me doubt everything Sean Penn believes in. Terrible.
This book is a real stinker. Two stars for effort... how did he get a sequel published?! I felt like this was a joke I just didn’t understand.