Customer Reviews

Feel This Book: An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

After a whole school year of reading classical literature, I bought this book to loosen up and get a laugh. A lot of stuff in this book is funny, other parts are simply clever. I'll admit that I found JG's essays a little redundant and she writes a little harshly, while Ben's additions (building yourself a "linen" cave, Mama Whitefeather's ring toss antics, and his hilarious lumberjack experience) were a lot funnier than Janeane's "inner warrior." The low points are that JG and BS don't really compliment each other and there is no real THEME to the book. This is no classic and I think that Ben's constant rantings about how he wants to make money off the book are not funny, but scary. Also, some of the references will become dated within a few years. Another downside of this book is that it's only funny the first time you read it; I read over a few of Ben's chapters a couple of months later and I didn't even laugh once. Still, if you want a quick laugh, pick up this book, and then read some Virginia Woolf so you can feel intellectual again. 3 stars.

I love Stiller and Garofalo, but as I read this book, I kept waiting for the funny part. Imagine how disappointed I was to get to the end and not find it! I was looking under the book jacket for hidden pages or SOMETHING, anything satisfying.

As much as I really want to love everything they do, their comedy just doesn't translate to the printed page. This book is a series of lukewarm essays that, although they may have their moments (Stiller's roadtrip diary being one of them), don't build on each other, and never attain critical mass. My suggestion: If you want to support Ben and Janeane, buy the book, but spare yourself the pain and don't read it.

I felt this book. Not just felt it, like holding it, I mean you have to hold a book to read it, but what I mean is I loved this book. It helped me get in touch with my inner comedian, the guy inside of me who wants to host a radio talk show and make $10,000,000 starring in a motion picture. Every chapter is hysterically funny. Well, not every chapter. The one by Ben Stiller having a guardian angel who looked like Hoss Cartwright is kind of like a bad sketch comedy bit that goes no where, but everything else in the book is right on and cool, to quote hip seventies language.
I guess it is kind of wierd to be praising a book five years after it came out and everybody else reviewed it five years ago. Okay, so I'm a little behind, but so what? Maybe this book was ahead of its time, maybe its time is now. Maybe Ben Stiller and Janeane Garafolo, Garofolo, Garofalo's time is now. They seem to be doing pretty well, Janeane is doing that terrific radio talk show and Ben is making a movie every other month, and I see all of them. Well, I didn't see the recent one with Jack Black, but that was in and out of the theater in like two days, but I did see "Meet the Parents" twice in the movies and twice on TV, and I'm waiting for the sequel which I have heard Barbara Streisand is going to be in.
Anyways this book has really helped me. It hasn't helped me to sell any of my thirteen screenplays which nobody has bought, but it has helped me to see being pathetic as a source of humor. That's good and amazing. Well, maybe not amazing, but interesting. And believe it or not I finished it in one afternoon, and I never did finish that book by Ellen Degeneris. Maybe, I'll finish that book today and write a review of it.

I listened to the audiobook, which I assume is better than the book because listeners get to hear the authors delivering their own material, and they don't read all the essays, just the ones that are the least awful.

The first two essays pit one author against the other in 'he said/she said' monologues, which have the saving grace of having the authors ridiculing each other as they describe their 'train-wreck' of a romance years ago. I didn't laugh once.

It gets worse though. After firing all their salvos at one another, they turn inward and run ripshod over themselves. Self-deprecation can be funny if done with wit and originality, say in the Joan Rivers/Rodney Dangerfield vein, but Stiller paints himself as a pathetic loser (and, ironically, he succeeds), and Garofalo preaches at us with her self-destructive behavior.

Neither author sounds as if they even wanted to do the audiobook. Their delivery is far off the mark, and I would be surprised if either one cared enough to do multiple takes. Garofalo tries to disassociate herself from the book by saying things like "I didn't name this chapter. I didn't get to name any of these chapters." and crediting someone else for writing a good deal of the material.

Of course this is supposed to be a comedy book, not a self-help book, but it fails in both respects. Don't waste your time.

It is a shame that this book is a total disappointment. I am such a fan of these two! But they could have been so much more witty and I expected so much more. The reading level was designed for 2nd graders. The letters are big and the chapters are skimpy! Looks like they rushed to meet a deadline.

It was an AWESOME concept, and I think they should try again and really spend time on putting it together. They are SO much funnier than this, I know this isn't their best work.

I love Stiller and Garofalo, and I thought the concept of the book was fabulous. But the content inside the book didn't match the back cover. It was like a mishmash of essays that didn't fit together. Alot of it, while interesting, didn't make me laugh. Even the stuff that did make me laugh was tepid at best. Definitely not something I'd read twice or want to keep. The only reason I'm not giving it a lower mark is because the he said/she said really was good, and some of Garofalo's writing is high quality. I do have to also say that I think I would have found some of it funnier in audio format.

I LOVE Ben and Janeane as much as the next guy - okay, probably more than most (I really liked Mystery Men) BUT this is AWFUL! I hope they made boatloads of money because it certainly doesn't do much for their creative credibility. I didn't laugh once and struggled to find what would be considered funny to others. As an English teacher once scrawled on one of my papers- this has all the earmarks of a rush-job. Either they tried too hard to be funny or they didn't try at all. Either way, this is a lame book that I would even wrap up and pass off to someone else. Bummer.

There should be a warning on the cover of this book: FASTEN YOUR SEAT-BELTS, IT'S GOING TO BE A BUMPY RIDE, because I guarantee that by the time you're deep into "Feel This Book," you're head is going to be swiveling around on your neck till you feel like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist." Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo take it upon themselves to lead you down a path few have traveled, with this self-styled "essential guide to empowerment" and other stuff. What you get will include a lot of cryptic, mysterious, sometimes amazing and often unbelievable passages that will leave you a) laughing. (A lot); b) scratching you head (A whole lot); c) looking at yourself in the mirror (frequently); d) wondering about the true nature of the entire Universe as we know it (and even the parts we don't have a clue about); e) see "a;" and f) asking yourself, "Who are these people, really?" In alternating chapters, beginning with a "He said, she said" brutally honest (?) account of their own relationship, they tell stories, share observations and generally do a stand-up job of entertaining the reader. Stiller gives new definition to the term "deadpan" with as wry a delivery as anything this side of a pastrami on, well, you know. Garofalo on the other hand fires up her acerbic wit to deliver such scathing commentary that no-one on the planet will be able to escape unimpaired. She caustically shares her (extremely low) opinions of just about everybody and everything (apparently including herself), and leaves you wondering just who her target audience is, since her barrage levels everyone in her path (as well as any and all innocent bystanders). However (and call this contradictory if you will), as you're going down, you'll be going down laughing. Really. It's that kind of book. The bottom line is, Garofalo apparently has more hang-ups than a telephone solicitor for a carpet cleaning company, so even though she's maligned you, it's done with such an endearing quality that you're merely left with the feeling of (as Roger Waters once said) that "Warm thrill of confusion." But, let's face it, there's only so much acid you can digest before you develop an ulcer. Perhaps that's why Stiller complements her diatribes so well; his dry anecdotes and tales are like a tonic when it's needed. In the final analysis, I urge you to approach this book with caution; arm yourself with the right frame of mind and forge ahead. By the time it's over, you just may have laughed yourself silly.

I'm some-what of a fan of both Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo, so I was curious about this book. It's very well done, and funny... Most of Ben Stillers chapteres were a bit on the [weak] side, but Janeane was able to pick up after him. Their dark cynicism of themselves and eachother is hysterical, not to mention very true to post-breakup feelings. However, insted of drowning is some vapid N*SYNC lyrics about loosing their girl, they get deep into the problems of their relationship. It's a very funny, and surprisingly meaningful book.

being a true fan of miss garafalo and most of her previous work, i dutifully ordered this book, and with bated breath, i awaited its arrival. i shouldn't have wasted my time. it is seriously one of the worst books i have ever read (and this is coming from a person who LOVED mystery men.) i was truly disappointed with the diatribes between the two authors, whom i once considered very witty. it was nauseating, and if you do one thing this whole year, it will be to stop yourself from buying this horrible book.