Customer Reviews

Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic.

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I personally kept a journal (fine, diary) all through grade school, junior high (the most horrid two-years of my life) and high school. I can't help but cringe when I read back on my childish angst, anger and insecurity. But when I read Mortified I realized I was not alone. Not alone in ending my entries with a "bye bye" as if the diary were an actual friend (like I had any)and not alone in obsessing shamelessly over boys who barely knew of my existance and never did become aware.

The selections made from the various journals are all genius, but I especially loved David Nadelberg's "Unsent Love Letter" which starts off with "Hello Leslie! How is your day today? Mine's quite well, I must admit." So dorky and so sweet and it actually gets intentionally funny for a high school sophmore. I'm just saying, it would've worked on me!

All the entries are good but my favorite part was being able to flip to the back of the book to the What The Hell Happened section and see, well, what the hell happened.

So, if you have any voyeuristic tendencies what-so-ever, or you just like a good My Sharona reference, pick up this book.

Bye bye.

It's gratifying to read about other people's dreadful teenage years. Weren't my own bad enough? Apparantly not. And here's the proof. You might take comfort in these chapters, perhaps re-examine the way you treated your more "fragile" peers. It's important to note that this is not an 80s family movie sanitized version of what kids go through. This is the ugly, pimply, dorky, greasy version... and for that it is to be highly recommended.

I loved it so much I bought it for my sister for Christmas. I've even been to the show! I disagree with those that say it's not as interesting as the show is as I've experienced both. These are all the people we all went to school with! These people are us! It's fun to read it and equate it to my high school life and friends. Even though there's a name attached I still think "I knew that person in high school!" It's comforting to know that you're not the only one who went through all that "drama".

Oh! I'm just jealous I didn't think of it first!!

Sure, it may not have the joy of personal inflection performed on a stage, but these printed words are like a fractured time capsule that proves everyone was just as neurotic, obsessive, and unrealistic as you were. If you can't find your debbie gibson cd, your freaks & geeks dvds have gone AWOL, and your personal yearbook is too close to home yet you yearn for some nostalgia, you could do a lot worse than MORTIFIED.

This is a MUST read if only for "The Porn", which is quite possibly the most insanely funny thing I have ever read. I laughed and laughed until I cried and got a stomachache. My boyfriend and I were shrieking with laughter. The other one I loved was the kid whose brother planted a fake essay in his homework that the kid actually gave to the teacher. The essay was so foul and full of swear words and all the teacher wrote was "This seems rushed." There is NO WAY the teacher read it. I was laughing/crying over that one too. I'm scared to go look at my journals after reading this because I'm sure they are exactly the same as these kids.

This book is painful in the best way. I highly recommend reading it with friends and sharing your own pathetic journals and love letters you wrote when you were 15 years old. It's even better when read out loud and shared.

Mortified is a book that will make you smile, laugh out loud and pause to reflect as you think back what it was like to be a teenager or worse a tween. It is a compilation of short excerpts form old diaries and journals which make you realize how glad you are to have survived those ten years and to think, was I as mortifying as those whose stories are presented here.

The stage show is funny as hell, and I'm happy to see that the book is, too. I was wondering how the stuff was going to translate on the page... it's actually more cringe-inducing in some cases. Love it.

Is that their slogan? I think it is. And here I thought I was being original. But isn't that the thing? We all think we're so clever and individual in our youth, in middle school and high school, and it turns out we're all exactly the same. We're all ridiculous and humiliating and, yes, mortifying. Maybe the specifics of our experiences aren't identical, but the universal truths of our embarrasing youths ring true in each and every one of these hilarious entries. The humor, the humanity, the truth of each of these pieces bleeds off the page and too often the reader doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry.
This book is the counter-argument to all of these "woe-is-me" memoirs littering the shelves. In presenting the most embarrassing horrors of adolescence, Mortified allows us to laugh ourselves all the way to catharsis.
Buy this for every student's graduation or 21st birthday.

I read this book over and over, laughing out loud the whole time! Then opted to pass it along to friends. I could not get enough of it! It brought back so many of my adolescent horror stories that created hours of conversation with my husband! Buy a few copies so that you can keep yours and give one to others 'cause you will want to!