Review: Disappointing doesn't even begin to cover it.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 8, 2012
While I read and thoroughly enjoyed her book "The Mancode: Exposed", this book was the antithesis of that one.  Mancode was a clever, witty, snarky, rollicking, well conceived and well written little ditty that captured your fancy and had you laughing during most of the read.  "A Walk in the Snark", however, has none of those things going for it and as such, is a real downer.Now I know I'll most likely be beaten up by people who don't want to read the truth about "their" discovery, Mrs. RachelintheOC.  Come on,  you know who you are...you're the reviewers who gave this book five stars and say you laughed "start to finish" while reading it.  If you were really into telling the truth, and not just looking for more "friends" on your Facebook page or smiley faces in your twitter, you'd fess up and tell it like it is...this book is ill conceived, boring, repetitive, repetitive, (did I say repetitive twice???  I meant to), mostly humorless and the "Poignant" essays are not that at all...they simply expose the fact that Mrs. Thompson still doesn't realize that her "Ex" (as she refers to him) continues to control her...even from the grave.  Her father had it right, "D" (most likely) ='s Duke because it rhymes with puke, a derivative of  the word vomit with which her father used to rhyme D's name (Just a guess on the name thing but she laid the clues out for the reader).  Puke is exactly what I wanted to do while reading these "poignant" inclusions.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a heartless bastard, I'm simply a guy who sees the "amazing" sudden contact by her "Ex" via Facebook as nothing amazing at all.  This guy has been longing to control her for the past 20 years and has now come up with a plan to prod and test her marriage, her resolve and her psyche from afar, which in fact gives him the opportunity to begin controlling her again.  Think about it...she states that D called her parents (two weeks before committing the ultimate act of selfishness, which by the way left behind a young son) and told them to tell her that he always loved her.  Bam!  Instant guilt trip for them as they didn't tell her about the call until after his suicide  and instant guilt trip for her because "if she had only known"...what...she could have stopped him?  How, by leaving her husband to go chase after this manipulative guy?  It sounds like she was considering just that at times when you read these "Hilarious" recounts of her thoughts about D.  After all...he remembered her birthday for God's sake!  Consider the kind of smarmy, self absorbed, manipulative person D still must have been to ask her questions like, "are you happily married", "do you still love me" and "is there the slightest chance for us",  (perhaps not direct quotes but you get the gist).  Is this guy actually worth pining over, dedicating a large part of this book to, perhaps considering breaking her vows over and for the most part crapping on her husband over?  Playing her like a cheap fiddle, he re-inserted himself into her life, did most of the things necessary to regain her trust, had her thinking about him perhaps more than her own family and then he wasted himself leaving her to once again hold the bag of emotional garbage, this time in perpetuity.  He enticed her into an emotional affair--something which is just as damaging, or more so, than a physical one. What does a happily married woman with two kids have to gain by rekindling a relationship with an ex-lover?  Any closure should have been sought out 20 years ago...I mean really, what is she going to do--Reconcile? Divorce her husband and move in with the ex?  READ her entries about D, actually READ them (don't just get PO'd at me because I willingly tell it like it is) and you will see from her own writing that she fell for him again--hook, line and sinker.  For the most part she defends him and makes apologies for him and his actions.  She put his picture in the book and points him out.  (I don't remember seeing a captioned shot of her husband anywhere).  At the end of the book she gives him kudos which rival the kudos she gives to her husband.  Her husband, you remember, the guy who put up with this garbage between the two of them for 3 months...he is the guy who deserves the credit here.  He sounds like one hell of a MAN, something her Ex certainly was not.Does ANY of this sound funny to you???  Believe me, it's not and that is why I have such a problem with this book.  It purports to be something it most certainly isn't.  My only positive thought is that I am glad I read it AFTER "The Mancode", or perhaps I would never have considered reading that wonderful little gem at all.  I'm giving this one 2  stars and suggest that if you want to find the few funny lines or observations in this book, stay away from the ones marked "poignant"...they are classic examples of how good marriages end up broken.  Luckily, as I stated before, she is married to a MAN, someone she could "stereotypically" fall back on.  Ironic, huh!