Lifestyle Book Reviews

Book Review: Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?

By Sandy Amazeen Nov 17, 2008, 1:06 GMT

An encyclopedic attack on modern culture so hilariously bitter that it actually becomes uplifting. Based on two runaway UK bestsellers, this new American edition has been ingeniously adapted and features exclusive new material for US audiences by Brendan Hay, a former Daily Show headline producer and contributing writer to America: The Book. If you hate chick lit, Che Guevara merchandise, pop Kabbalah, cosmetic-surgery-gone-wrong-as-tv-programming, DVDs with ads you can\'t ...more

The authors take aim at a host of contemporary piss-me-offs with hilarious results in this A to Z guide to annoyances large and small. From the opening volley lambasting abstinence programs and the ludicrous adventure expeditions of the privileged, but brain dead rich to easier to drink “Bio-hydrated” water, this is a no holds barred, irreverent look at today’s icons.

Networking for instance is seen as “The dark art of pretending to like people in order to advance one’s own self--even though that self has precisely nothing to offer the world barring an extraordinary aptitude for self-advancement.” Several references are made to Britney Spears, the Iraq war, new technologies and the ultraconservative right, all are amusing. Uberfun (be sure to look it up) and farcical, this is a totally non-PC look at everyday life…speaking of which, why isn’t politically correct included?