How Not to Be a Dick: An Everyday Etiquette Guide
*Starred Review* Really? An etiquette book for teens? Yes, really, you butt-faced jerk! See, that right there is “dickish behavior,” a timeless plague for which Doherty has a cabinet full of cures. The atmosphere is pure Dick-and-Jane: fussy early-reader prose married to bland clip-art-style illustrations starring a deadpan boy and girl. Through these oldfangled characters, Doherty fires absurd twenty-first-century zingers that happen to be really, really, really funny. (When was the last time you LOL’d at a nonfiction book?) Droll humor is one thing, but does Doherty deliver substance? Shockingly, she does, offering teens blunt, no-nonsense advice on the adult world that awaits them. Examples: don’t stare at a female's boobs during conversation, avoid passive-aggressive Post-its, try to smell like “nothing in particular” if you work in the service industry, don’t recline your airplane chair all the way, and on and on. She even drops some mega-wisdom bombs; regarding faith, she writes, “Believing in an idea is kind of like falling in love with a person—it just seems right, even if we can’t explain it.” Given the emphasis on roommates, office parties, and alcohol, this is clearly the gift book for next year’s high-school and college grads. After all, we all need the occasional reminder that peeing in the shower is wrong. Grades 10-12. --Daniel Kraus