Customer Reviews

Fuck This Book

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is so funny, the first time I looked through it, I almost peed my pants. I think I've looked through it 30 times, and every time I laugh out loud. Very clever idea. A friend gave me this book as a gift, and I've bought 2 more to give as gifts to other people. You can submit your own photos for the next book. I can't recommend this book enough.

This is a funny and clever book. But it's much more than that. Let me start by saying that when I originally saw the first few pictures, I thought, "Okay, nice idea, it's done now, it need not go on."

Wrong. The variety in this book is amazing; there is not one repetition in the nearly one hundred images! Yes, they're all amusing; but some are ambiguous, which even adds to their humor. Some actually change a mundane sign into something not just provocative but profound -- while still being uproariously funny.

Artistically, the book is situationist and interventionist. May I explain? The signs belong only in certain environments (situations); the superimposed stickers, always a mere single syllable, intervene on the mundane thoughts which the utilitarian signs usually generate. At the same time, the stickers bring the signs to life like turning so many inert puppets into real people.

With one single action, the stickers force removal of the original meaning, but not entirely: hence the jokes. Marcel Duchamp, anyone? He would have loved it.

The book also records performance art. Unlike most such art, there are no people here. That they don't show up in the photos actually enriches the result; we are left to respond to the photos in our own way, without restriction of others' actions.

This collection is an extraordinary cultural commentary. In a singular way, it encapsulates the sexualization in pop culture. So what will parents do when they and their children encounter this book in a store? I'd like to be there right then, just to witness the result.

You know those T-shirts people wear (especially young people) that have incongruous, mysterious, or challenging words on them, unrelated to what their wearers may be doing at that moment? Pare that down to its essence, and you have this book. Yet the book itself is the opposite of pared down: it is rich, and deeply so.

Or consider the possibility of going about ordinary business and suddenly encountering people also doing ordinary things -- but entirely naked. That, of course, has often been tried with much success, and is a relative of this book too.

That the stickers are obviously homemade is important. The book does not suggest that there is a culture somewhere with perfect, machine-printed signs offering funny messages. It does not engage in dreams. It does suggest that there is a kind of anti-Santa out there striking down the very infrastructures the signs originally represented. Graffiti art? This is it in its purest form.

Another imaginative twist: the half-title of the book reads simply "buy this book"! Momentarily we think, Is that the real title? We may also see, in that one unadulterated "sign" in the whole book, the irony laid bare: any commercialism behind the original signs is wrecked by one little word. Instead of a world infused with "Buy!"stickers, in the book's world, that command is covered. An entire world is challenged and inverted by a simple action.

Who would have thought that the worst taboo word in English could provide so much social philosophy? The book's website provides still more, as the author invites all to participate. Subversion not only of language but of authority is a game which any number may play.

This book is brilliant. You may be miffed by it. You may be alarmed. But with even a half-open mind, you will be enriched beyond all expectation.

It's exactly what it purports to be so if you're looking to better yourself or something look elsewhere. Crude low brow humor, but I enjoyed it for what it is.

The photos in this book kept me rolling for hours... Not just because of what the altered signs end up saying - but also because of the reaction people seeing them must have had. Brilliant idea.

Maybe I'm a grumpy goose or something but I didn't find this book to be all that funny. If I'd first seen it in a store I would have looked at it and chuckled for a minute or two then put it back on the shelf. Instead since I couldn't find it in the store I bought it online, chuckled for a minute or two standing in my living room, put it on the shelf and haven't looked at it since.

The idea of replacing words in signs with the f-word is pretty funny, but a lot of the stuff in here is just flat. Worth flipping through once (maybe twice) but that's it.

When I received this book a couple of days ago I was roaring with laughter at my desk at work. The book is now being passed around the office and you can tell who has it by where the laughing is coming from.

This is a fun, inexpensive book that will have you laughing uncontrollably as you flip the pages. Just when you thought it couldn't get any funnier...you'll see the next sign. I highly recommend this book!

Very funny book, would be a great present for a small price. for me personally, the most attractive place to put a "f" sticker would be somewhere where it is almost impossible to do (like inside a government building), i mean it's not a big deal to put a sticker on the "no U-turn sign" in the middle of nowhere. Street art should be in public places. Great buy

Bodhi Oser must have had an absolute blast making this book...It's a gosh darn funny book. (The review writing guidelines say you shouldn't use profanity..."gosh darn" is ok, right?)

I have been known to use the F-word, and I enjoy this book for it's wit and invention within the narrow parameters the "author' has permitted him/her? self. If you are offended, you know what you can go do to yourself.

When I first thumbed through the first several pages of this book, I chuckled, but thought it had no potential as a book-length piece, and it was simply a one-joke premise. But I was wrong. The first time through, I laughed so hard at some of the pictures that tears literally ran down my face. About 10% of the pictures are dumb, 50% of them will cause you to smile or chuckle a bit, and the rest will induce loud laughter.

I felt like a junior high student laughing at low-brow locker-room humor, but in reality the concept is much more high-minded than that. A nice coffee-table book for those who are not easily offended!