Customer Reviews

Too Beautiful for You: Tales of Improper Behavior

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Rod Liddle, Too Beautiful for You: Tales of Improper Behavior (Doubleday, 2003)

Twelve generally interrelated tales of everything from Keystone Kops-style slapstick to almost Kafkaesque magic realism. The majority focus on some sort of sexual misconduct or other (the major exception, oddly, being the book's first tale, which is nothing more than a shaggy dog joke that is, to be fair, exceptionally well set up). Liddle has good comic timing and knows how to pull an idea out to its logically absurd conclusion (the book's best story, "The Long, Long Road to Uttoxeter", is a perfect example of this, with a man trying frantically to come up with an excuse for an infidelitous jaunt when he becomes involved in a nasty rail accident and loses his right arm on the way home). There did seem to be a few times when an editor might have been able to snap stories into better shape, but what's here is certainly worth reading if you like your humor with a dash of the perverse and a jaundiced eye towards twentysomethings. *** ½

The best book I have read in months...Rod Liddle's book is a gem.