Reviews

Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste by Simon Doonan, John Waters

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fizzymilk22's review against another edition

funny informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

4.5

basically a completely disorganised series of tangents and anecdotes about john's life, work and passions that begins and ends at random and my god is it fun to read. Even when I was reading about stories I already knew from interviews I had a good time. Makes me really want to read the 100 million other books he's written. iconic must read for fans of movies with names like Two Thousand Maniacs!!

lannnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaa's review against another edition

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informative fast-paced

5.0

brakywaki's review against another edition

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5.0

This is the only John Waters book I haven’t read yet and I naturally I’m ending with the first one he wrote. It’s fascinating to read from him at a time when he had not quite achieved mainstream acceptance, and Divine was still alive and thriving. Ideologically Waters hasn’t changed a bit and it’s reassuring to know that America’s greatest personality came out swinging. I hope he outlives all of us.

bryce_is_a_librarian's review against another edition

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5.0

Want to feel like you have led one boring ass life? Read a John Water's autobiography. He offhandly mentions accidently smoking crack in the introduction, and its not even the strangest thing that happens in the introduction, hell its not even the strangest thing that happens in the parenthesis that he mentions it in.

The book is a blast to read, and weirdly inspirational, it's like me version of a Doctor Phil book.

adamp0's review against another edition

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funny informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0

This is so much fun I love everything he writes. I love his perspective on the world and art, and learning about how he made his films and the people involved. The stories about his early life are so funny. I LOVE YOU JOHN WATERS

cantordustbunnies's review against another edition

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4.0

This book is great for John Waters fans and was very much written for them. Not so long ago I would have found it to be incredibly delightful because it was so much fun to "stick it to the normies." Reading it in the current day and age is a lot less enjoyable when the kind of oddball people described in this book are currently in positions of considerable cultural power in the western world and you see that the way they act is actually not so cool. The magic of John Waters can only be fully appreciated when observed within the context of when homosexuality was ostracized, misunderstood, and truly feared. As a homosexual living in that time it must have been difficult not to enjoy Waters because he was so brazen, so confident, and lived up the worst stereotypes people held only to mock them. Now when people are ACTUALLY doing things like sending their young children to see sexually suggestive drag shows it's just disturbing. His jokes about children watching his early films are not so funny. When massive organizations like major banks prominently display "racialized" rainbow flags and children are undergoing hormone replacement therapy the insane world he created in his early films and his musings on them in this book are no longer quite so charming. Being that his films took such an abruptly conservative turn, I can't help but feel that Waters himself would agree. As I said earlier however, his work has to be appreciated under the cultural context of the time in which it was created and he will always be an irreverent, quirky, macabre genius. The tone of this book was quite informal and one can see how he managed to become so successful, he's very good at involving the audience in his vision and including them in the joke. He includes quite a bit of interesting behind-the-scenes information, some personal history, as well as share his inspirations in an entertaining and unpretentious fashion. I enjoyed his style of writing and wouldn't mind reading more by him, and would be curious to know more about his thoughts on the current state of society.