Nonfiction Book Reviews

I hesitated when I first saw this book doing check-in - it looked funny, on one hand (I sped-read the backside, and it seemed like something my Handsome Older Brother would write, quite frankly) but on the other hand, “Poo Bomb”? Seriously? That was pretty crude and yucky, and I don’t tend to like a crude sense of humor.

But in the end, I picked up and brought home The Poo Bomb: True Tales of Parental Terror by Jeff Vogel, and I did read it. I ended the book much the same way that I started it: With mixed feelings.

Yes, there were some pretty funny spots, but overall, I just didn’t appreciate the swear words (LOTS of swear words!!) or the yucky sense of humor. I honestly wish I hadn’t picked it up. I almost didn’t review it on here (now I have to actually claim that I read this book!) but I finally decided in the end that I needed to review it, just so that others could decide for themselves.

It’s a 921, which means it’s an autobiography. Jeff Vogel chronicles the first year of his daughter’s life in a journal - week by week, he goes through what she learned to do and what funny things (he thinks) happened that week (like the Poo Bomb diaper, or her spitting up on other people, etc). Even being childless like I am, I could relate to some of it, and I laughed pretty hard in parts.

Here’s one section that was particularly funny to me, mostly because basically the same thing has happened to my husband and I multiple times:

George and Sharon Vogel - My Parents
My parents. Good, decent people. Who wanted grandchildren. A lot. I soon realized that we had to be very careful talking to them. Actual conversation:

Me: Mom, we got great news.
Mom: Mariann is pregnant!
Me: Uhhh, no. We got a new bedroom set.
~Page xvii of The Poo Bomb

Yeah, I definitely relate.

I do have to say, I feel really sorry for the daughter. When she grows up and people find out that her father wrote a book about her as a baby, forget Prom or Homecoming or anything else remotely sociable. No guy is going to want to go out with the “Poo Bomb Girl.” Lots of pity there.

There are simply funnier people out there (like Dave Barry) and certainly less crude books out there for you to enjoy. I would say that the average person ought to skip this one.

In the end, The Poo Bomb only gets 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Hava
Who can’t believe she’s actually claiming to have read this book…

A Brother’s Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse by Richard B Pelzer was a very difficult memoir for me to read.  The abuse described in this book made me sick to my stomach.  I’d read his brother’s memoir, A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer, back in high school and remember crying - sobbing really - because of what happened to him.  Richard’s memoir affected me as deeply as Dave’s had.

If you haven’t read A Child Called It, I would say that’s almost a must before reading Brother.  Richard pretty much just jumps into the story with very little explanation - it’s almost as if it’s a sequel to Child.  Reading them one right after another might be a bit much to stomach, however, because they are both so darn depressing.

For the few people who haven’t heard of A Child Called It or A Brother’s Journey, basically what happened is Dave and Richard grew up in California in the ’70s, and were subjected to intense abuse by their mother. When Dave was a part of the family, he was called It or or sometimes That Boy when someone was feeling nice that day. Eventually, the state came and took Dave away. Once Dave left, Richard became the de facto whipping boy, literally.

The mother was unstable, completely unbalanced mentally, and a horrid drunk to boot. She was regularly wasted by 10 in the morning, and sometimes woke up still drunker than a skunk because of how much alcohol she’d consumed the day before. The father was terrified of his wife, and stayed married to her until the day he died, even though he moved out of the house when Richard was still just a young boy.  The mother is a monster, and that’s the nicest thing I can think of to say about her.

One thing that bothered me about A Brother’s Journey is that the story ends when Richard is only 15 years old. I felt like the author had intentionally cut the story in half (after all, he’s still living with his mother and brothers at this point - there is no Great Escape like there was at the end of Child) in order to write another book and make twice the money on the same story. Sure enough, after finishing this book, I did a Google search and saw that there is a sequel, A Teenager’s Journey. I don’t know if I want to read that one or not.

Overall, this was a hard book to read - I felt physically sick to my stomach during parts of it. I wouldn’t recommend it to the faint of heart.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars

Hava

Money for Nothing: One Man’s Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions by Edward Ugel was not about a guy winning the lottery, as I had originally thought it was.  Instead, Mr. Ugel worked in the lump-sum business: Basically, if someone was receiving an annuity payment over the course of 20 years because of winning the lottery, he would buy them out upfront and give a lump settlement to them, all for a fee, of course.  He made very good money, but it was an extremely competitive business and some of the tactics he used to find and sign up lottery winners was, to put it nicely, cutthroat.  He never broke any laws, but he did use some amazing salesmanship to “get ‘er done.”

It’s a fast-paced read - I finished the 235-page novel in just one day - and overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  There were several things that detracted from the novel though: First, the author didn’t shy away from using swear words.  If this were a movie, it would be rated PG-13 just for the language.  Yeah, sure, cutthroat salesmen probably weren’t worried about whether their language was clean or not, and I realize that it’s realistic this way, but still, I’m not a fan of swear words, and that did bother me.  Second, the author tended to tell stories within stories, and jump back and forth through time without explaining what he was doing.  The book is not organized chronologically, and he would refer to his wife, then fiancée, then child being born, then suddenly she’s his fiancée again.  I never quite knew where in time we were at.  And he’d also start telling a story, then start another story, go back to the first story, start a third story, then finally finish the first one.  For a speedreader like me, that was hard to keep up with.

It was worth jumping through time though, because the stories were absolutely fascinating.  I kept thinking to myself, “Why aren’t any of these people smart about the money?  Why do they blow through the money so quickly?” And then of course the requisite, “If I won millions in a lottery, I would be smart about it.” Which I believed all the way until I got to the end of the book, where Mr Ugel made the following statement:

“If you were handed a thousand dollars, if you won it out of the blue, what would you do with it? No lying.  Yeah, I’d blow it too.  Now, if you were made to dig a ditch or paint a house, or do any job for a day or two in order to receive that same money, what would you do with it then? Exactly. Me too.  Bills are bills.

“Earned money is more valuable than found money because it is more valued.” Page 207, Money for Nothing

Touché, Mr Ugel.

Anyway, if you don’t mind a PG-13 book because of language and gambling (no sexual scenes, murder, or drugs in it anywhere, just swearing, drinking, and gambling) then you’ll be fine with this book.  And if you’re wanting to know more about the gambling industry, lottery winners, and the lump-sum business, then you’ll thoroughly enjoy this book.  I learned some pretty interesting facts, like the idea that lotteries help fund education is a bunch of bull, which took me by surprise because I live in a lottery state and I am constantly watching ads on TV about how lotteries help our schools prosper, blah blah.  Turns out that is a complete lie.  The government, lie about money?  Never.  I know, I know, shocking.

I give Money for Nothing 4.25 out of 5 stars.

Havs