The Alphabet of Manliness
by Maddox
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Book Reviews of The Alphabet of Manliness
Book Review: Not Worth Your Time
Summary: 3 Stars
After having some experience with the website I thought Maddox was a person who could validate anything he spoke of. Every argument and every statement he makes is instantly backed up with his arsenal of biased opinion. Maddox is at times very funny and his website has made many people keep close tabs on anything he does, such as writing books.
In this case, he clearly states the only purpose of this book is to make money. I hope he succeeded, but in the overall process he failed to create a book. Instead, he just wrote 26 essays based on old and tired jokes. Sure some of it is great and I did manage to laugh out loud several times, but the point is this is not literature. I must admit I did want a break from the same old literature I was currently into and expected something different. But this just let me down.
Much like Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs, this collection of pointless stories destroys the author's creativity and humor. Chuck Klosterman and Maddox both try too hard when they write and they come off as lame.
This book was still funny enough to give it a few stars as I didnt hate it, but I can't say that I will ever read it again. Go to his website and read his articles, they're better. Otherwise, keep this book in the bathroom and read a passage or two from time to time.
Book Review: Funny at Twenty
Summary: 4 Stars
Maybe I'm too old for the Alphabet of Manliness. The chapter on Heavy Metal music left me. Somehow I never equated fights at heavy metal concerts with being manly. Overall I thought that the book was juvenile rather than manly, expressing stereotype impressions of lost teenagers who grew up in a single mother home rather than the calm assertive strength of a manly man. Some of the comments and images were humorous, like the chapter on loggers. I wondered if the author had ever actually done any logging or known any loggers though. Some of the chapters are just crude and childish in the manner that 3rd graders think crude body functions are funny. The chapter "D" for "Taking a Dump" is one of those. It didn't really explain why men taking a dump is more manly than women taking a dump either, its was just a poor attempt at crude grade school humor. I suspect that the target reader is 15 years old boy being raised in a fatherless home struggling to find out how to become a man. The level of humor is about there. If you are looking for anything serious about the art and science of being manly this in not the book for you. If you are looking for crude jokes about growing up to be a man and how to act dumb at heavy metal concerts then you will enjoy this book.Book Review: Alphabet of Manliness
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been a long time fan of your site and as soon as I saw the book was completed I told my local book store to stock 10,000 copies and another 10,000 just to make sure they had enough. They unfortunatley denied my request because the town population is only 10,000 and they figured not every pirate, man, woman, and child (in order of importance) wouldn't want a copy of the book. So of course I punched the owners wife in the ovaries and promptly gave her husbands children dropkicks out the front window. I then preceded to go to my local grocery store and pick up my usual 20 bags of beef jerky, 2 bottles of hot sauce, and a couple new porn magazines.
About four days ago a copy of your book appeared in the local bookstore and I bought it immeadatley pushing everyone out of the way, be them in the store or not, in order to be the one who got it. I then put the money on the counter and rushed home to read the book. I am still in awe of how awsome the book is. I have read it 12 times since I first read it.
For your information so that you may make my bookstore carry more copies of this book I live in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.
I am not worthy.
Book Review: Simply Masterful
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is truly great for anyone with an open mind. Its an effective satire and is incredibly fun to read. If you've ever been to Maddox's webpage, The Best Page In The Universe, then you might already be braced for what's contained within these hallowed pages, but don't expect more of the same. More of the same would have been perfectly satisfactory for the price of admission for me, but I have to say Maddox has stepped up his writing style a notch and appears somewhat more refined in this effort. The only thing I can say that even distantly irritates me is the 'Alphabet' format, but it suits his material really well. I think, personally, I would have rather seen more of a collection of articles rather than something restrained to something so rudimentary as the alphabet, but, by all means, don't take this statement as anything negative. This is just something of a quirk for me, and isn't a problem at all. A fantastic piece and one well worth its price. We can only hope for more published work to continue this trend of improvement.
It should be noted though that this book is not written by a 'Mark Maddox' as Amazon indicates, but a man using the pen name of Maddox.
Book Review: Meh...
Summary: 2 Stars
Well, I think Maddox's website is really funny...hence why I pre-ordered the book. However, this book is pretty stupid. Basically, the facial expression that I had when reading this book, was me with s straight face. Since when did gross = funny? I don't even mind gross content that much if it's actually funny. But if the content is just gross, then it's...well, gross. By the way, I'm refering to the part where he describes different types of feces. It's like: "Ha ha ha, get it? It's funny because he describes different shapes s**t can have in such a formal manner! Ha ha ha." This is exactly the kind of "humor" that makes me all those "Scary Movie" or "Not Another Teen Movie" type of movies really bad. I agree with one of the previous posters: the funniest parts were probably when he went off on a tangent.
Also, I think he's trying way to hard to shock people. That's way too easy, because the people that are actually shocked by this ideocy are not so smart. It's way harder to actually be funny. Again, don't mind the whole "shocking" scheme if it would actually be funny. This book is not.
Maddox can do better, as one can tell from his website's content.