3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Open, honest, hilarious, October 13, 2011
This review is from: A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man's Peculiar Journey Through South America (Paperback)
Who doesn't love this guy? He's honest about everything he goes through in his trip and you feel his ups and downs like they were your own. I really loved the way it was written and all the little details of the adventure, including the background of it and what happened afterward. If someone recommended this book and you're deciding on getting it by reading the reviews... well go ahead and give yourself a unique read with this book about a dude trying to find himself in a foreign land with foreign women.
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13 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The emptiness of modern manhood, September 27, 2009
This review is from: A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man's Peculiar Journey Through South America (Paperback)
If I had a loonie for every cubicle jockey I've known who's huffed and puffed about quitting their office slave job and going on an trip abroad, I'd have enough money to do it myself. Roosh Vörek is one of the few men who had the brains and balls to follow through. After ditching his career as an industrial microbiologist and finishing his first book, Bang, Roosh took a trip through South America that lasted six months and took him to eight countries. Now, he has transcribed the events of his trip into a travel memoir. Don't be dissuaded by his cliché-laden description of A Dead Bat in Paraguay as being about "suffering and pain and hardship and darkness" - Roosh's book is a glorious triumph of low comedy and high adventure, a breezy and worthwhile read.
Unfortunately, as this is Roosh's first foray into literary writing, his inexperience shines through at regular intervals. While he narrates his misadventures with a wry tone that readers of his blog ought to be familiar with, every so often he breaks voice to go on a sentimental missive. Take for instance, this snippet in which Roosh tries really, really hard to convince us that he cares about the plight of poor miners in Bolivia:
"Until the output of the Potosí mines cease to be profitable--and it is a matter of when, not if--these men and future generations who follow will die miners, much younger than is fair...I felt small for complaining about my relatively easy job at home that paid me a salary the miners could only dream of. How did I come to the conclusion that a professional job with fair pay in a modern building was actually torture?"
My god, someone has it worse off than you! What an original observation! Please, shut up and spare me the bathos.
But aside from these trite diversions, A Dead Bat in Paraguay maintains a breakneck pace from beginning to end. The story begins in Washington, DC, where Roosh relates the story of his life and the factors that led to him giving the bird to the 9-to-5 life and heading to South America. The sequence of events will be familiar to longtime Roosh readers, both of his current blog and his previous incarnation as DC Bachelor, but Roosh fills in details about his career and family life that are new and interesting. In particular, his description of his close relationship with his sister is moving, showing a side of Roosh that we don't see in his other writings.
An important part of any book is its diction, and on this front, A Dead Bat in Paraguay is as smooth and pleasing to read as a good wine is to drink. An acolyte of the Hemingway school of literary writing, Roosh shies away from flowery descriptions and overblown metaphors, relaying his story with an understatement that conveys imagery and emotion in its own way. His bone-dry sense of humor pervades his prose at almost all times, with lines like "I made love with the toilet." Roosh is awfully fond of toilet humor in the literal sense - a lot of the laughs come from his loving descriptions of the painful, explosive bowel movements he had while on the road. No mere clown, though, he also retells the struggles of his journey with a bluntness that gets the reader invested emotionally. A large part of the narrative is Roosh's attempts to hook up with the local women in the various places he visits, only to be met with repeated failure. His constant battle to adapt his game to the cultural idiosyncrasies of the women who he tries to bed is so compelling that when he finally meets success, you'll want to cheer.
The frankness and honesty of A Dead Bat in Paraguay is a refreshing change from the fake, phony, and fraudulent memoirs that have flooded the book world in recent years, but it also hurts the book in some ways. Any good storyteller has the ability to BS with aplomb, and Roosh isn't quite there yet. His emphasis on relaying the details of his trip has too much of a "just the facts, ma'am" feel to it, as if he was writing a college paper and not a commercial book. The weakness of this approach culminates in the book's ending, which just sucks. In fact, it isn't really an "ending" - the book just sort of stops.
In pointing out these issues, I don't want come off as being too critical. In a literary world full of flotsam, jetsam, and other varieties of garbage, Roosh Vörek has produced something remarkable and memorable. Feel free to give him your greenbacks - he's earned them.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read, December 14, 2011
This review is from: A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man's Peculiar Journey Through South America (Paperback)
I am a big fan of Roosh's other books, Bang and Day Bang, so it was only natural that I should check out his other works. As someone who is deeply interested in exotic travel, as well as women from foreign countries, it seemed like a no-brainer for me. After finishing it, I was thoroughly entertained, as well as educated on just how gritty, exhausting, and occasionally touching travel can be to a solitary man who is searching for some meaning in his life.
It describes many points of "non-interest" (according to popular travel guides anyway) that a traveler looking for a unique experience might explore, as well as an honest look into more of the typical tourist destinations.. These include horrifically long bus rides and stomach issues and sparse moments of beauty. But Roosh often makes it seem as if the journey might be more important than the destination, and that all of these trials will bring some sort of deeper meaning at the journey's conclusion. I certainly am turned off of South America after reading it, but Brazil seems like a cool place to check out.
Overall, the book was highly enjoyable and I finished it quickly after purchasing it. There are moments that really touched me towards the end with regards to my own experiences with traveling and leaving romances behind, and moments that made me cringe. Fans of travel stories with an agenda towards bedding foreign women will love it. Highly recommended!
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