Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Recovering Preppie: A Memoir

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The book follows a meandering, unfocused style of writing with no real plot or overarching story to speak of.

Also, note that 3 (at the time of this writing) other reviewers are one-off reviews by profiles who did nothing other than rate this book highly. Be warned.

Vanity presses exist for a reason, and that reason is that most people cannot write anything that anyone would be interested in reading, and thus will never, ever get a traditional publisher to blow their money publishing them.

But hey! As long as we have vanity presses like BookSurge, horrible writers like Michael de Mare can waste their own money publishing a book that nobody will ever read except for book reviewers. And they'll be sorry they did.

If you liked Jack Kerouac's _On the Road_, but thought it would have been better if Jack had had less talent as a writer, you may like _Confessions_.

No plot, no theme, no style.

Judge this book by the cover, the contents are as inspiring as the art on the front.

You might want to read this book so that at parties you can talk about how bad it was and how only your intense aversion to never quitting, no matter how bad things get, stopped you from quitting in the middle.

Confessions of a Recovering Preppie, the autobiography of cryptographer Michael de Mare, is less of an inside look at technical secrets than an overview of his life. The author mixes such diversities as The Big 80s, military service, computer science, conferences and travel plans, laced with enough stringent observation of preppie behavior to make a modern day Margaret Mead happy.

Here we catch a glimpse into why someone might need to recover from preppiedom as de Mare struggles to surmount often-humorous daily obstacles, which frequently take the form of fellow students. What really makes this autobiography stand out is de Mare's dry wit, present in much of the exchanges but especially evident regarding "Shawna's circumstances." At times I had to put the book down, I was laughing so hard.

Tinged with just the right amount of nostalgia, Confessions is a great read. And you don't have to be a computer scientist or codebreaker to understand it.

This book is a delightful and refreshing view into the mind of a genius on what it is like to get your master's degree. There is an innocence about Michael deMare and his writing that just make's one feel good about the world.

I enjoyed Confessions as a candid glimpse into graduate studies and life on campus as a grad student. I especially liked the interaction with the undergrads and the way he develops his plan for postgraduate study. The comments on how private sector employment more fully prepared him for graduate study is certainly important. Undergrads can take a lesson here! A very entertaining read.

This is a refreshingly honest book about college life and computer science. Michael de Mare's deadpan humor makes it a quick, entertaining read. One example of his style: his friend "Lincoln" decides he wants to run for an undergraduate political office. The author thinks to himself: "I wonder what would be the first thing he'd do if elected - maybe free the slaves?" There are also some disturbing descriptions of "real" college life in regards to his roommates who are "party animals." Though some of their behavior is worse than disgusting he seems to take it all in stride and manages to graduate with honors.