Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence by Paul Feig
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.72 You Save: $8.23 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence
Book Review: Awesome book, awesome writer
Summary: 5 Stars
Read it once and I was hooked so I had to buy it. Highly recommend, very funny moments that we can all relate to growing up. The brutal truth in adolecense.Book Review: 5 Stars
This is the companion book to "Superstud". I thoroughly identified with the growing pains of the author. I highly recommend this book!Book Review: You Think You Had It Bad?
Summary: 4 Stars
Here, the creator of the outstanding (and greatly mourned) TV show Freaks and Geeks, lays out his most embarrassing childhood moments in hilarious vignettes that will have readers cringing their way from start to end. The book takes him from first grade through high school over the course of the '70s, as he evolves into ultimate suburban geek: polyester clad, germ phobic, Monty Python-lovin', sports hating, pimply, awkward nerd. If you're a Freaks and Geeks fan, he's basically kind of a combination of the worst parts of the Neal and Ken characters. And if you're not, think of a lighter version of David Sedaris and you're on the right track.
Feig fully admits his neuroses and total cluelessness, yet I categorically refuse to believe that one person could have suffered so many mishaps, indignities, bullying, and general embarrassment and lived to write about it. The contents of this book simply cannot be true -- but I don't care, 'cause it makes for great reading. Even though a number of the episodes are total cliches (the dodgeball game in which everyone gangs up on him, the horrific first gym group shower, the parents to cheap to get him a proper Christmas pageant costume, the horror of the CPR dummy, Little League ineptitude), Feig manages to make them funny all over again.
This is a great book for any guy who looks back at their youth with distress at their inability to charm the ladies. No one does it worse than Feig: Childhood crush wants to kiss you? Play coy until she gets bored. Crush on cute girl in homeroom? Give her a family heirloom as gift and watch the confusion on her face as she tries to work out who you are. Crush on classmate? Tell tasteless joke comparing teacher to simian and watch her report you. Somehow manage to score a date with a cute, fun-loving chick? Recoil all night in disgust from her beer breath and deliver the worst good-night kiss of all time. The book ends on a great note, as Feig takes his childhood playmate, the girl next door, to the prom and discovers something unexpected.
However, the best stories are the ones that don't fit into the usual categories. My favorite one where he writes about the forbidden childhood thrill of digging around in his WWII vet dad's closet and decides that hanging a Nazi flag in the front bay window is a good way to honor his father's service. Then there's his bizarre flirtation with cross-dressing, and his even more bizarre sexual awakening in the midst of gym rope climb. There's the terror of riding the school bus, and an ill advised stint as PA announced at the high school football game.
It's kind of an interesting read in the sense that Feig is so utterly clueless and harmless that you find yourself constantly rooting for him to get something right. But sometimes his own admitted issues, especially the germ phobia, make one unsympathetic to his plight. In any event, it's highly entertaining and likely to make almost every reader feel better about their own school days. Apparently he's written a sequel called Superstud, about his late teen and early adult years.
Book Review: Kick Me
Summary: 4 Stars
Kick Me was engrossing and I had trouble putting it down. There were times when I was laughing, times when I was ready to cry and times when I wanted to kill some of the people for how they treated Paul. I could relate to some of his 'adventures' and since I've just recenlty come out of high school, I can very vividly recall my own. I have never seen Freaks and Geeks so this review is based on the book and the book alone. My favourite part of the book was the beginning of the first chapter. Paul talks about how it's not fair that kids are named such brutal names such as Cox or Seaman. It is my favourite part because it is SO true. Kids can take any name, any name at all and turn it into something that just asks to be teased about.
Paul recounts his first loves, gym class, his first sexual stirrings, his fears and phobias, being bullied and most of all, being called a fag. Paul Feig was an adolescent in the 70's and everyone around him was calling everyone else a fag. Most of them probably didn't even know what it meant they just knew it was 'something they didn't want to be,' and so they called everyone else one.
Having just recently read about Homophobia, it was disconcerting to see the word so many times throughout the book. However this is not the fault of the author, but of the ignorant people who let their kids get away with such rude words. Things are different now than they were in the 70's (so I'm told since I wasn't yet born) regarding homosexuality but it still irks me to no end how cruel and demeaning people can be. Anyone feeling the same way may have some troubles getting through that chapter as I did. This is just a warning and does not take away from the rating of this book.
Kick me is written in an easy to read format and you don't have to be a college student to understand his writing. This is refreshing as a lot of books can be hard to follow if you don't have a certain level of reading ability. There is a lot of foul language in this book because Paul is recounting his adolescence and to block out what his peers said would greatly diminish the book. Although this is about adolescence, I would recommend this book to adults, not to adolescents. I would say 16 or over.
There were a couple of times when I wanted to know more than what was published. I almost want to contact Mr. Feig to ask him some questions. For instance, when he talks about kissing Cathy and how by the look on her face, he isn't sure if it was the best or worst kiss she had ever gotten. That is the end of the chapter and I'd like to know what happened between them after that. Was it the best or the worst? Did they ever talk again? Or date again?
Overall Kick Me was a well written and interesting book and it's nice to see something different being published.
Book Review: Feig tells it like it is.
Summary: 4 Stars
Well I thought my childhood was miserable, but apparently I've got very little on Mr. Feig. The poor guy really did have a hard time, it's hard to imagine it wouldn't have taken years of therapy to undo the psychological damage of the events described in this book. His description of gym class alone made me want to run for the hills. But Feig reports all of these traumatic incidents with admirable grace, humor and candor. But aside from being an entertaining read, Kick Me is an important book and for the following reasons should be compulsory reading for all children and the people who care for them.:1) It might stir some sympathy in kids and persuade them to show each other some compassion now and again.
2) It would correct parents laboring under the delusion that childhood represents the best years of one's life, and prevent them from inflicting that myth upon their kids.
3) It would give school nerds evidence that they are not alone and perhaps soothe some of the loneliness and freakishness they often feel.
It's also an important book for Feig in that hopefully the people who made his childhood hell would read this book or at least hear of it and feel some well-deserved shame over what heartless jerks they were. Bravo, Mr. Feig!