Customer Reviews

Rejected: Tales of the Failed, Dumped, and Canceled

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I LOVED this book. There was so much I could relate to and somehow found the experience of reading it to be uplifting, encouraging and so very funny. I heartily recommend Rejected to anyone who has been turned down, cast aside, brokenhearted or enjoys a good laugh. It was unique and terrific...but it NOW!

Loaded with fun great stories! Great variety too. If you buy it and don't like it you can personally reject it and return it! But you won't. It's a great read...

John Friedman runs a show in New York called The Rejection Show, which celebrates the all-too-common experience of not succeeding. This book is a collection of some material from that show, various writers, comedians, actors and cartoonists reflecting on their favorite rejections.

Overall, the material in all over the place. Some of it, honestly, should have been rejected. Other pieces have moments of laugh-out-loud humor. Neil Pollack's short story, "Brother Elk," is a pretty solid short story. And both the collection of rejected headlines from The Onion and rejected jokes from Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" both have some hilarious lines. But in general, the bigger the bomb, the better the comedy. And that goes to Kevin McDonald's recounting of a show his comedy troupe did at El Macombo rock club. It ends with the audience hurling homophobic insults (their act followed a gay men's choir) and two of the performers getting into a fistfight on stage.

I recently heard an interview with John Friedman, and perhaps better than anything in this book were some of his insights on what it means to fail and, in this case, what it means to celebrate failure. By looking at his failures as something to be collected, as positives in that regard, he gave himself the freedom he needed to really take some creative risks. Although not as funny, thoughts on the nature of rejection itself would have given this book a little more heft.

Really enjoyed this book- fun to read about other peoples failures. Highly recommend it!

Even though my own work was rejected from Rejected (ahem), this is a hilarious look behind the scenes of the writing and comedic life, ranging from Wendy Spero's perfectly hilarious story of getting (and keeping) internships at Letterman and Conan to Sara Schaefer's tale of heartbreak. In some ways, the lead-ins about how and why the pieces got rejected are just as valuable as the stories themselves. Some are a bit too self-indulgent (the dissection of hate mail), while some are the kind you wish you'd have written to a total loser date (see Mike Albo's scathing takedown of one of his own dates). Others are stories you're sure the original editor is kicking themselves for not having included. Adrienne Frost's stalking tale is also among the highlights, and anyone who's contemplated doing anything to meet their biggest idol, will want to check it out. Friedman's introduction, and the overall spirit of the book--one of recognizing that one rejection does not mean rejection forever--is one any writer needs to acknowledge if they are going to make a career out of it.

This book is hilarious! I got through it with a box of tissues from laughing so hard. This book has a way of spinning rejection into something positive which is definitely something we all can relate to.
This book is a must-have. Buy it now!

A thoroughly entertaining, laugh out loud truly original anthology. Filled with many different kinds of rejection that leaves you feeling good inside. Highly, highly recommended to anyone looking for a good time read.

I write a few things so thought this book would hit the spot of rejection, something we all deal with. About every fourth story might give you an idea of rejection in the writing world but really was disappointing to me ... I only finished it out of a desire to see if there was anything funny in there and there is unfortunately very, very little and you had to really look for it. Didnt get this one at all.

A great premise for a book that is executed poorly. This comedy writer/editor contacts a bunch of other unknown comedians and asks them to tell stories of when they have been rejected. It turns into one big gripe book--where they individually tell really boring stories that you wouldn't want to hear from your best friend much less from a know-it-all stand up who you've never heard of. While they try to make the stories funny, they're really all pretty depressing and humorless.

They have an SNL freelance joke writer who has had only one joke used out of 600 submitted! You have a guy who was under contract as a correspondent on The Daily Show who repeatedly wouldn't get called to be on the air. You have a directionless, pot-smoking college grad who decides to use her "talent" for lying to get internships at both Letterman and Conan without mentioning the conflict to either show ("I'm not a liar, really" she writes!)

There are one or two semi-known names (Joel Stein from Time magazine--wow!). There's one "chapter" from a minor performer on "The Office" that is literally one paragraph long and the woman's bio is about as long as her contribution to the book! It's also annoying that the mini-bios of the writers come at the end of the chapter--why not start each essay with it so we know who is writing it?

After reading each short essay the response is, "Who cares?" These aren't stories that you can learn from--they are just opportunities for the unfamous to whine about not being better recognized. It's only going to be of interest to New Yorkers who find conversations while standing in line at Starbucks fascinating. Everyone else should just reject it.