Customer Reviews

Do-Over! In Which a Forty-Eight-Year-Old Father of Three Returns to Kindergarten, Summer Camp, the Prom, and Other Embarrassments

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Be ready to hold your side while reading Do Over. I slurped down most of the book while sitting on a plane to New York - my fellow passengers starred at me as I shook with laughter and smiled with every muscle of my body. I even caught them watching my hand as I reached into my purse a few times to tap the tears streaming from eyes. Finally a burly white haired man leaned across the aisle and asked me what I was reading. Out loud I read an excerpt from the first essay and the first two rows of the coach class were laughing in the aisles.

This book is the perfect Father's Day gift. Or just send it to one of your childhood friends and oh the conversations that will arise.

One thing Robin Hemley won't ever have to do over is Do-Over!, his hilarious, wise, and moving account of his attempts to revisit and correct his past embarrassments and failures. This is a masterpiece of contemporary creative nonfiction and an absolute blast to read. Through his do-overs, Hemley reaches a delicate kind of détente with his past self and learns how to become a better father to his four daughters. This book would make an ideal Father's Day gift--or any kind of gift. The book is so good it has inspired me to do a do-over of my own: I plan to re-read it again very soon.

"There's a new kid in class..He's very big. I don't know what to think about that."

Robin Hemley's do-overs are brave and honest, and yes, laugh out loud funny. He's frank and vulnerable about his insecurities and past missteps, achingly so at times. But there's a lot of Do-ing Now in DO-OVER too. The layering of those two worlds--past and present--will take you on a rich journey through sweet and painful regrets only to land you at the center of Hemley's tender and full life, one in which Then and Now form a wise and witty truce.

While I expected that Do-Over would make me laugh, I didn't anticipate the lovely sadness it would make me feel. By "lovely sadness" I mean it is full of warmth and humanity; Hemley doesn't write just for the easy laugh. Rather than just describing for the reader what happened as he "did over" past failures and embarrassments, he journeys inside the experience in order to understand what these events meant: both now and in the past.

From reading his book I learned a lot about Robin Hemley, of course, but I also came to understand more about the human condition generally - which is what a great book does for a reader. Hemley encounters the past in the best possible way, with the insight of his adult self--a wise, caring, warm and funny adult self.

After reading Do-Over, you will want to tell all your friends to read it, too.

from the Bellingham Review. . .

"Some things, like first kisses and circumcisions, are un-do-over-able," writes Robin Hemley in his new book _Do-Over!_, a half-memoir, half-travelogue that's a complete success. I call the book a travelogue because in it Hemley revisits the locales of his past--both in humorous evocations and in the flesh--attempting to redo some of the memories that have turned into his mid-life regrets.

In ten delightful chapters, he details his return to kindergarten, to camp, to a childhood home, to the middle-school morass, to the prom. Each begins with the reason he wants to attempt a do-over. He hated kindergaten, he tells us, because, incredibly, his teacher used to sit on him. That chapter, like the others, moves from memoir to a kind of immersion journalism as Hemley details his experience as a 48-year old man re-enduring a week of school, a week of camp, a palm-sweaty prom date.

This pattern could turn into a gimmick in the hands of a less-talented writer, and even Hemley occasionally has to work to keep it fresh. A chapter about re-taking a standardized test, for instance, needs to morph into a mini-essay on maturity in order for it to sing; and as the book moves on, we wonder if watching Hemley return to a fourth different school can be as charming as watching him go back for the first time.

It is as charming, though, because Hemley leads us step-by-step through his own adolescence in a way that makes it possible for us to lead ourselves on a similar journey. He's never ponderous about his own past and rarely sentimental, so we feel invited into his life and back into our own. He's exceptional in his ability to present his own anxieties and awkwardnesses, too, without seeming to be overcome by regret. Do-Over, then, is a book in which we encounter a writer whose scars have mostly healed, a person who can face his old self without flinching.

When he returns to junior high, though, even he has to cringe, writing, "You never outgrow the trauma of eighth-grade showers." A truer sentence has never been composed. It needs no do-over.

"Do-Over!" will make you want to read it over and over. The book is exceptionally funny and witty. Robin is brave enough to write about things that he was not successful in during his childhood and has had enough courage to do them over. It was very entertaining to read about a 48-year-old in camp, kindergarten, and other places that no other 48-year-old adult, a father of 5, would go for any other reason than losing a bet. Robin's sense of humor and way of describing things makes you laugh out loud even in public. His sincerity and genuine desire to replace the bad memories with new and better ones is very endearing. As I followed Robin's journey of doing over kindergarten, prom, exchange program in Japan, etc. I thought of a couple of things I could do over myself, and that's the beauty of it: Each of us can think of a few things we want to undo or redo, but only Robin had the guts to actually do it.

This is a great, lighthearted book that's thoroughly enjoyable! It made me think about my life and the direction I'm going in a positive way. Several laugh out loud moments

... it must be Robin Hemley. I had the good fortune of studying under Robin Hemley in 2004 and I once described him as a cross between Woody Allen, Indiana Jones and Willy Wonka, and I think Do-Over bears this out. What Robin has decided to do is go back and "do-over" the more significant losses and humiliations of his younger life: a kindergarten play in which he flubbed his lines, his high school prom (which, in fact, he didn't really do a first time) and his stint as an exchange student in Japan (probably the most satisfying do-over as it is both hilarious and lump-in-your-throat touching). In the process, Robin gives us a very honest glimpse into his married and family life (a second marriage and daughters from both), a process he is simply doing, and hoping to get right.
What, I think, Robin puts to the test is the old adage, "If I could go back, knowing then what I know now..." And the reality is, even if you knew then what you know now, and you could do it again, the heart would still get in the way of the facts. Eighth grade still feels like eighth grade, whether you're thirteen or 46. Flubbing a line in a play still feels the same whether you're five or 46. You might reconcile the event in some way, but there's a good chance you'll never feel any differently about it. It's funny and touching to see Robin sitting in a classroom filled with kids and be concerned about whether the cool kids like him -- in fact, worrying about it the way we all did when we were that age.
Robin finally does the prom (with a boyhood crush that, if the photo in the book is any indication, still looks preeettty good). Of course, now, he picks up his date at her house and makes conversation with her husband as she gets ready, but as you follow him along this adventure, you feel that "going to the prom" feeling you did back then.
And the final Do-Over, in which Robin goes back to Japan as an exchange student, is a terrific ending. Mostly because it is clear that Robin meant a great deal to his Japanese friend and created some indelible memories for him. As these two grown men wander the mean streets of Japan, his friend reminds Robin of things that Robin had forgotten. After all those years, someone was still carrying a torch, so to speak.
The idea of Doing Over is not so appealing to me as it would be to others. In fact, it is a daunting idea ... and I'm glad Robin Hemley did it for me so I could enjoy it from the safety of my house where, even after all these years, I am haunted by feelings and regrets that I could only dream of trying to face again. Most of us say "If only..." Robin goes out there and finishes that sentence for us. A wonderful book.

We all arrive to adulthood with a wide variety of regrets, disappointments and things we would like to change about how we've gone along the path of life. Robin Hemley has taken a look at the placed along his path he would like to try again at -- moving from early experiences, like kindergarten through prom and frat membership and more. The book is a look into the present and into the past and what makes us who we are -- and how much of that is (or is not) up for change. A thoughtful read that might be great for a bookclub discussion.

Remember when Mrs. Brown passed out Valentines from the huge Valentine's Day box to all other 3rd graders except you? Or the time when you were to recite a poem from memory to the parents on Back to School night and forgot the words? What if you were to re-do these flubs in your formative years and get them right this time? This is exactly what Robin Hemley did in his new immersion memoir Do Over.

The 48 year old Hemley embarked on his Do Over adventures because "sometimes you need to reevaluate what you think you've left behind forever as a way to find out who you are now . . . ." In short, Hemley was hoping to gain a new way to view some of his past failures. He also wanted to better connect with his daughters from a previous marriage who were or would be navigating thru some of the same rites of passage that he was attempting to re do.

There are apparently rules in attempting Do Overs such as not going back to revisit a failed marriage. In the end, Hemley set out to Do Over: (1) Kindergarten; (2) the School Play The Littlest Angel; (3) Summer Camp; Sixth Grade; (5) Joining a Fraternity; (6) Eighth Grade; (7) The Prom; (8) Standardized Tests; (9) his Childhood Home and (10) being an Exchange Student in Japan. While the results of his abbreviated recreations were sometimes mixed, they were always highly entertaining. Often while reading about Hemley's adventures I was laughing out loud. For example, the following exchange cracked me up:

"Do you ride the bus?" Louis asks.
"No."
"Oh. Well, who's picking you up?" Halely asks.
"My wife" I say.
There's a long moment of silence as they take that in and blink at me like cats.
"Oh" say Stefan finally. "I thought you were going to say your dad."

Surprisingly, apart from a few naysayers, most everyone (kids and adults) is supportive of Hemley's quest. As Hemley puts it during his 6th grade escapade: "I know I'm not really a sixth grader, and my classmates know this too. But we forget sometimes, and its good to forget. Sometimes I'm an observer. Sometimes I'm a participant. Sometimes I'm an oddity. But most of the time, I seem to fit in somehow . . ."

Do Over is a highly entertaining and insightful, memoir. I recommend it for an enjoyable read. Meanwhile, I'm off to create my own list.