Review: Absolutely hilarous and a great read this time of year
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2013
I read this book on Black Friday and must say it was perfect for the mood. Like the author, I’ve never been a participant on this day (possibly more shocking since I’m a woman). The crowds and aggressiveness and middle-of-the-night lines just never appealed to me and I doubt they ever will. While I can certainly appreciate the courage it takes to wrestle over great bargains and can understand that it allows a lot of people to do more with less for their families, it’s just not a situation I will ever willingly land in. So I’m sure you can understand why I thought this book would be a good investment of my time during this post-holiday craziness.But this book isn’t about Black Friday. And while his journey to the mall takes place during Christmastime, I think it’d be a great read any time of year. Aside from the Santa references, it’s really—in my opinion—an excellent discourse on mall-shopping in general. If you are one of the people that finds malls exacerbating, you really should read this book. If you know someone like us, it’d make a great gift. I know I have a few people I plan to send it to.While this book isn’t very long, it’s hilarious. I know many people (myself included) won’t buy a book that has fewer than a set number of pages (for me it’s typically 300). But it was Black Friday and I was in the mood to read something by a like-minded individual. If you’re stuck waiting on someone to shop, it’s perfect to kill the time. Though keep in mind you’re probably going to be chuckling to yourself and getting very weird looks. Completely worth it. Really it is quite a good length for what it is. You don’t want a 300+ page rant on malls, right? That would go beyond being funny and just get sort of sad.You start with parking and go through dealing with pushy salespeople, the food court, and of course annoying customers. It does go beyond the mall for two other topics: Christmas-tree lots and, of course, the post office. These are two excellent additions and wrap the whole thing up quite nicely. If you’ve ever ranted about anything involving the shopping experience, you’ll see that rant here and written in a fresh, funny way. Though I can’t say many of the complaints here are new, Hester has one of the best styles for making these complaints. He has no qualms pointing out everything he hates about the mall experience and I was laughing out loud in public at his attack. I will say it was a pleasant surprise. A part of me was worried it would be more angry than funny and, well, that’s just no fun. But from the moment he laid out his parking playbook, I was a fan.The chapters are reasonably short and focused on a particular aspect of shopping. It’s a hard call, but I think my favorite is “There are Dumb Questions.” I’m not going to say I never do anything ridiculous or embarrassing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy someone humorously pointing out pet peeves that I share. And not all of these questions are ridiculing the asker. For example, “Can I speak to the manager” can be a perfectly valid question. If you’re getting horrid service, you want to rectify it. But if you’ve ever seen the episode “The Return” of Dilbert, you can’t help but fear you’re just being passed around to people who are either not at all in charge or who have authority but couldn’t care less about your plight.This is a funny, well-written book that (if you can’t tell yet) I really liked. I’m surprised this is his first book and hope to see more from him in the future. Hester may be on a tear here, but he’s got a great sense of humor and knows how to balance his humor between ridiculous and a little judgmental. It doesn’t read as one long criticism and it’s not all bizarre one-liners. In general, I agree that malls are crowded, patience-testing creations that sadly have a place in our world. Thank goodness for Amazon since it gives me an escape route and thank goodness for people like Hester who make me laugh and convince me that I’m not alone. If everyone gives you a disbelieving look when you say you hate malls, this book is for you.