Funny and heartbreaking...
595042
My book club read this novel through an initiative with the publisher. Wonderful idea as we got to meet the author. This is a terrific debut novel with two wonderful love stories and a very inventive plot that features a play within the novel. The author has some quite literate references to Yeats, Shakespeare and Irish myth. The characters are beautifully drawn. It's both funny and heartbreaking.
1428342
A VERY enjoyable book, to say the least.  Mr Moore captures the flavor and nuances of  the women he protrays in an
excellent manner.  I continually wondered if the writer was a woman writing under a man's name --until I read his bio.
The book was both hilariously laugh-out-loud funny AND tear jerkingly sad...the characters unforgettable.
3957032
Until I read this book I only knew Darrell Hammond as one of the funniest and sucessful cast member of SNL.  He had made me laugh so many times.  But the childhood abuse, self abuse and mental illness struggles he exposes in this book are truly heart wrenching.  Now he made me cry.  The clarity and well written prose keep the reader engaged.  Now I can laugh and cry with Darell Hammond understanding there is such a deep devide between the public and private life of someone I have admired.  Well done, Darrell.
3167488
Excellent book, hilarious albeit a little heart breaking.  Reading leaves one no doubt this family loved and laughed a lot!
4643875
Once I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down. It's fun and at times heartbreaking. I loved the quirkiness of the characters and at times found myself laughing out loud.
2731502
Can a book about grief be funny? Yes. It can be funny, and heartfelt, and nostalgic, and clever, and unbearably sad all wrapped up together. Lauren Foxs pulls this off brilliantly in her new book Days of Awe.

On the surface, we see main character Isabel Moore face of year of grief and struggle: the death of her best friend, the demise of her marriage, the frailty of her aging mother, and the growing resentment of her tween daughter. But Fox isn't content to let the story sit on the surface. She digs into the inner lives of her characters and exposes raw human emotion and connection  the depth of female friendships, the strength of mother-daughter bonds, the thrill of falling in love, and the pain of recognizing that love is gone.

I loved Foxs writing style  which had me wanting to read more and more. I also loved her sense of humor. Several exchanges in the book had me laughing out loud. Other sections of the book made me cringe, only because they were so real I felt uncomfortable for the characters. I am eager to look into Foxs other books as I enjoyed this one so much.

5 stars.

Thank to you NetGalley and Knopf for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
1982159
Beautifully sweet, heartbreakingly sad and outrageously funny, all wrapped into one.  Life through the eyes of this man with the rough exterior ends up being a touching testament to love.  It's a must read.
3205431
Funny tales of marriage and having children.  My only caution is that this is for mature audience ... author shares her real struggles with marriage and motherhood (and daughterhood) that not all will find comforting.  Quite frankly, I think Jennifer Coburn leaves plenty of evidence that she knows that many of these issues are her own doing, so it doesn't read like a standard cry fest.  Instead, she writes to expose not only herself and her faux pas, but the struggles of life told in a way that will cause the reader to identify with struggles, laugh and the insanity of it all, and keep turning pages.  No, don't look for answers in such a book... but do appreciate a very skilled author and a funny take on what makes married life such a struggle.  Surprise, it's ourselves. :)
532552
This book was really interesting, not just because it was funny, but it also brought out a really sad side of humanity.  I can see some of these stories being on a tv comedy show about dumb people, but it blows my mind that they're that dumb in real life. Maybe humans aren't the smartest beings on earth. Ms. Hamm truly shows how chaotic working in a hospital can be.  And sometimes, how thankless.
I enjoyed this book immensely.
4908398
What I read about this book before ordering it indicated that it was laugh-out-loud funny.  The fact that I didn't find it to be so doesn't mean it was a bad book.  There is humor, to be sure...it just happened to not be the kind that is LOL funny to me...and that's okay.  What I discovered is a heart to the story that makes it just as (if not more) worthy of a read than just laughs.

In part, this book is about what it's like to be a fledgling writer when your father is one of the most famous and revered authors in the country--how you know your writing will always be compared to his and you wonder how (if?) you will ever measure up to his level of success as a writer.

In part, this book is about a son who has always seen his father in one light (and not a very positive one) and finally comes to know him as a full person.

In part, this book is about marriage--about when it works well and when it doesn't--and about how easy flirtations with someone you're around all the time can happen when you're feeling unfulfilled or disconnected from your spouse.

In part, this book is about erectile dysfunction. Yep, you read right. When I say in the title of my review that I found the book "slow to start," it's because the entire first part of the book was about a period in the main character's life when he is unable to "make things happen" with his wife, Anna.  This shortcoming (sorry--had to) ends up impacting his marriage, as well as other areas of his life.

If you would have an issue reading about limp penises for a number of pages, this may not be the book for you.  However, if you can get past the floppy dick phase of this story (which is I suppose the part that many people found hilarious), you will find there is a real heart to this story and this crazy, mixed-up family.

You won't always like these people but, if you're anything like me, you will come to have a soft spot (smile) for most of them by the end of the story.  This is, at its heart, a father-son story.  We're not talking treacly sweet and weepy Hallmark special here.  This story shows the warts and all, but I think that is what makes it so ultimately rewarding.

I fell in love with this book by the end, and I hope you will too.
4228728
When I was in college, I saw Tommy Boy for the first time. At one part, I laughed so hard that I fell off the sofa with tears in my eyes. I thought I was going to hurt myself.

Chris Farley was from Madison, Wisconsin. Maybe it was his Midwestern roots, or his Chicago connection, or my age when he was at his peak, but he was one of my favorite comedians. This book is a hilarious and heartbreaking oral history of Chris's life by those who knew him best. I was laughing out loud at page 3, and nearly cried several times through the second half of the book. By the end, it had brought back all the good memories I had of watching his skits, and I felt like he was a friend I had grown up with.

Chris would do anything to be funny: not to get a laugh, but to give a laugh. Chris believed God gave him a talent and that it was his ministry in life to make people laugh so hard they cried. This comes through loud and clear from everyone in here. People loved Farley. He walked into a room and you laughed before he could say a word. He had such a good heart and such a giving personality.

What became apparent at the end of his life, was that he also had more than his fair share of demons. He wrestled with numerous addictions, constantly struggling with his weight, alcohol and drugs. He visited rehab more than a dozen times. His friends reached out to him time and again, but in the end, nobody could break his downward spiral.

All the big names are in here: Dan Akroyd, Lorne Michaels, David Spade, Adam Sandler, Tom Arnold, Chris Rock--all of his fellow Saturday Night Live cast members and writers, people who knew him from Second City and The Improv Olympic, as well as childhood friends and family. They paint a portrait of a spectacular man who, at his best, could light up any room with his larger-than-life personality and, at his worst, could tear up a room with drug-crazed antics.

There are a lot of facets to this book. Some celebrity expos material, some stuff on Chris's philosophy and what it was like to work with him, and a good deal on his complicated relationship with his father and the culture of alcoholism that ran through his family. The book chronicles his many trips to rehab and subsequent relapses. It covers his movie-making, including interesting bits on the movies that he had in the works (he was originally cast as Shrek and had recorded a good portion of the film and was trying to get a Fatty Arbuckle biopic off the ground). It talks about his deep faith and superstitious quirks. It talked about his on-the-set antics and friendships. But the most touching thing, I thought, was the amount of charity work he did unbeknownst to many of his closest friends. He visited old folks' homes and hospitals regularly. He befriended a homeless man with whom he had dinner weekly and treated to plays and concerts (something nobody knew about until the man spoke at Chris' funeral).

The toughest part of this book is that even as you find more and more to like about Chris Farley, it pulls no punches when it comes to discussing his addictions. And a sadness pervades all of the great and hilarious stories, because we all know how this one is going to end. I haven't been this affected by a book in awhile. I still have a heavy heart.

On a strange side note, as I just finished the book, I looked on Facebook to see if there were any Chris Farley fan pages. There are. And then I noticed that today is his birthday. He would have been 44.
2377496
This has to be one of the funniest books I've read in a long time.  I kept  laughing out loud on the subway reading it.  The story of Eve as she goes  through a period of elation then confusion and anxiety before her wedding  is written in a birlliant, honest and extremely funny way.  The writing  style is brief with short sentences that add to the comical rhthym.  Each  chapter is a month that goes up until the big day of the wedding as Eve  tells the reader exactly how she feels as she goes through work, wedding  planning and life.  The book also has some touching moments and draws you  deeply into the story.  My cousin who just got married said it was  hauntingly accurate and painfully honest.  Anyway I really recommend it,  even if you can't relate to the exact situation, it is well-written, funny,  and a great story.
1826555
I really enjoyed this book 1.) because it was funny, and 2) because the Miles character was more like my young self than any character I've ever read, and 3)I'm always interested in stories about how people 4) deal with grief, and 5)learn to accept their own fallibility.

Plus, it was funny (did I mention that? Because it was.) It didn't lose its sense of humor for the "After" section either, although the humor took a short break while the characters were saddest, and changed in tone to follow the tone of the story.

It was not a dark book. It was realistic, but full of hope. And funny.
The characters were juvenile (but did grow... realistically.)
It was still good to read as an adult (over 40.)

Including characters that smoked and drank and even had sex in a way I never did high school did nothing to keep me from being able to identify with them.

However, if you never felt like a reject or were bullied as a kid, you may not be able to identify.
462585
... Sex, Lies and Stereotypes is a laugh out loud for anyone who can laugh at themselves, friends, family or their love life.  I read this book and immediately bought other copies to give away to friends, both gay and straight.
Regardless of the reader's current opinion on subjects from internet dating to ass worshipping you will laugh outloud at the astute and hysterical insights.  Don't miss this one -- but beware that  you'll want to read all the essays in one sitting!
1126811
This bittersweet novella begins and ends in the present with happily married Harold and Stuart. In between, we are given flashbacks to show us the story of Harolds infatuation with Mario, much of it told through dialogue and Harolds witty responses to the key people and events over those intervening twenty years.

The writing is superb and highly original. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but it made me chuckle, laugh out loud, say Awww, and cry. The humor and light-hearted approach to such a heartbreaking story worked perfectly and stopped me from becoming a blubbering mess. At the same time, the story has a happy ending. It has you thinking about love, commitment and being true to yourself, and cleverly interweaves moral and political issues.

If you only read one M/M book this week/month/year, I recommend you read this one. Seriously, its that good. I will definitely read this poignant story again and look forward with anticipation to Joes forthcoming works.

(The author provided a copy of this book in return for an honest review.)
28283
Short, funny, sad, and entertaining. I can relate to this book and that's why I like it. If youve just been dumped, read this book. It will make you laugh a little bit.

Thank you to Netgalley for opportunity to read this book.
671095
Tired of books with a sad story and themes that bring you down? Then this is the book for you. Well written and laugh-out loud funny - it is a great book!!