Customer Reviews

America Unchained

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This is the third sensational book by Dave Gorman. It follows his debut non fiction novel Are You Dave Gorman? which he cowrote with fellow British author of many books in this genre Danny Wallace. His second book and first independent adventure tale was Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure. If you haven't read any of these guys' work before its pretty hard to describe the type of book you're going to be reading. Lets just say you know those moments when someone recounts something which happened them to a crowd of friends or people at a party that has those listening imagining they were in that situation and everyone breaking into uncontrollable laughter. Well these guys have the talent to do this in the written form and they do it extremely well!

America Unchained is a little bit less eccentric in its task than the first two were. Are You Dave Gorman? was a world wide adventure of trying to find and meet 54 people with the same name as him. Googlewack Adventure was Dave being bet he can't find a chain of ten Googlewhacks in a row before he turns 32 and travelling around the world to win that bet. This book is more a reflection on society today and a challenge he is interested to undertake, to discover if the America he loved on TV as a kid, could actually still be found today. Depressed from his previous travels in the USA while doing a stand up tour and experiencing sterile sameness in the hotels he stayed in, places he dined in, bought groceries at and so on, Dave wants to experience the USA of his childhood dreams. Where small mum (mom USA) and pop stores knew their customers names, where owners were proud of their bed and breakfasts, where if you travelled around you'd experience uniqueness everywhere you go. Dave decides he's going to drive from the West coast to the East coast only sleeping in, buying food from, and filling up with gas from non franchise, non chain establishments. The idea was also liked by a British documentary company. They offered to fund Dave's trip if they could also send a passenger with him, that passenger of course would have a camera. Can it be done, you'll have to read and see but there's definitely a lot of fun along the way, a lot of experiences for Dave, many of which come from the fact that he bought a Ford Torino Estate wagon, nice car however the one he was sold is a bit of a lemon. Dave also does a bit of wondering around the places he is at without the camera companion Stef, and his experiences and commentary in Salt Lake City on the followers of Joseph Smith and the book Joseph made up/founded are hilarious. Along the trip Dave will meet some of the nicest and friendliest people in America as well as some not so nice ones including an evil Mississippi cop and encountering unfriendly youths with a gun.

America Unchained is a great Griswold's National Lampoon's Vacation type driving adventure! I found the first half of the book to be a bit higher quality than the second. When Andy joins the trip it drops a bit in quality as he just wants to finish the trip and get home to his granddaughter. That's why I rate it four and half stars instead of five. It's still a must read though.

If you haven't already done so also grab a copy of Are You Dave Gorman? as well as Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure. Also read Danny Wallace's books Join Me! (the story of how he started a cult by accident) and Yes Man (Danny can only say Yes to any question) they're hilarious as well!