Customer Reviews

What Would MacGyver Do?: True Stories of Improvised Genius in Everyday Life

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Great Idea, terrible execution. I've never written an Amazon Book Review before but I was so disappointed in this book that I just had to write this and warn others. If I paid $[...] for this book, the author and publisher would owe me about $[...]. This book is almost 90% fluff stories which bear almost no resemblance to a clever McGyver story. The content seems to have been submitted largely by writer wanna-be's not clever real world McGyver's. I forced myself to finished the book just so I could feel justified in writing such a bad review. The book is not written badly, the stories are light and easy to read but - I have no idea what anyone was thinking who decided some of these stories had anything to do with McGyver example: [My boyfriend started freaking out on a plane after some turbulence so I asked the big guy in the row behind me to subdue my boyfriend] - that's it no clever solution. Many of the stories are similarly off-base in trying to claim to be McGyver-esque. Yes their are a handful of stories which met my expectations about the type of content and story - but these were very few, far between, and not particularly clever. The worst part about this book is it took a rather excellent premise and ruined it.

I originally listened to the book as an audiobook. This one was so bad, I borrowed the hardcover book from the library so I could go over it for this review. This book claims to be stories of improvised genius. Far too many of these stories disappoint. The editor introduces each chapter with a preview that adds little to the work.

Here are some examples from the book which are NOT "Improvised Genius":

The car's exhaust system is dragging on the ground, so you contemplate using a coat hanger to tie it up. Instead, a construction worker cuts it off for you using an acetylene torch.

The power button for your computer breaks off the motherboard, so you glue it back on with Super Glue.

You forget to set the parking brake on your rental truck, so you chase it down and manage to set the brake just before it reaches the neighbor's lawn.

You steal a cup of ice from the convenience store next door so your drinks can be properly chilled.

You are asked by an editor friend to come up with a true story of improvised genius, but you can't think of one, so instead you write about not coming up with one, offering a story you made up based on a synopsis of MacGyver episodes you read on the Internet.

And finally, a story that this reviewer made up:

You're a New York editor, who has sold a book idea about "improvised genius" to your publisher. You build a website, soliciting stories, but the stories you get are either not very good examples of "improvised genius" or not well written, or both. So you turn to all your writer friends and pester them for stories. Most of the stories aren't very good examples of IG, but they are well written, so you use them.

Improvised? Yes. Genius? No.

This book is a total let-down. The supposed MacGuyverisms are few and far between, and the best "Stories of Improvised Genius" just amount to execises in common sense. The author should be ashamed for using such a gimmick for a book of brief, mostly dull anecdotes.

I recently purchased this book, very excited to get a bunch of real MacGyver-type stories. Unfortunately, I only got through the first three before having to give up.

Does the author really think the real MacGyver would be proud of these three? Knitting needle as a clutch cable pin? Yawn. Snack mix for traction? Is he serious? And here's a beauty: Waiting for someone else to come by because you're so worthless at fixing your own muffler? They don't exactly grab you... Certainly not anything close to what the real MacGyver would do.

Perhaps there are better, more worthy stories later in the book. I'll never find out. The three I listened to attempted to be so "eloquent" that they became nauseatingly "cutesy". Way too verbose for the actual amount of informational value. Self-celebratory to the point of being repulsive.

I loved the show, and with equal emotion, loathe this book.

I was excited by the title, but it didn't deliver. It's a bunch of short stories of people who 'improvised' to make something work. Mostly stories of people who think highly of themselves and make a big deal out of very little. Finding ice chips for your cocktails hardly counts as a MacGyver quality improvisation. A couple of the stories are good, but over all the book is a major let down.

...which is why I wasted my money on this awful, awful book. The BEST thing is the cover... a great catchy title, and a picture of Richard Dean Anderson's mullet. Cool!

Other than that, everything about this book is horrible. As other reviewers have pointed out, it has nothing to do with what MacGyver would have done, and everything to do with pretentious artsy-fartsy writer/advertising/media types trying to deal with everyday reality. I suspect the author sold the concept for the book, pocketed the advance, then suddenly realized he had to deliver SOMETHING... so he called a few dozen friends and transcribed whatever nonsense they dictated over the phone.

No Swiss-army knives. No paperclips. Nothing of interest here.

I own thousands of books, and love books. I've kept books I've disliked, and I've kept books I've disagreed violently with. But this one hits the recycling bin. It will look better as McDonald's paper napkins.

I am sooo despondent over this book. So little was anywhere close to the type of solutions that MacGyver would do; worst was that he wouldn't have even participated in these stories. Too many stories dealt with morally questionable situations (how do you fake ID's to get beer, what can I do to get inebriated, how to fake out a girlfriend, etc.). Anyone that's ever watched the show AND appreciated it knows that the whole catch to the character was that he would always fix a situation in a way that did NOT compromise his character, morals or ideals; even if it meant exposing himself to more jeopardy or making things harder to do. Best of all, he was a SCIENTIST, a lover of KNOWLEDGE, an environmentalist, and a trustworthy friend. The stories in this book have so little science and require so little imagination that you almost wonder why the authors didn't succumb to Darwin's theory earlier.
After about a third of the book, I was so repulsed by the stories that I actually dreaded reading anymore. I did finish, but only because I did indeed pay for the book and hoped that somewhere in the proper spirit of Angus MacGyver, the author would find a solution for the dreck that he calls a book.

I was extremely disappointed in this book. For an author who purports to be a MacGuyver fan of the highest caliber, I find he misses the point in just about every story. Judging from the books taglines, I might expect nifty stories about how people had to fix things in interesting ways. By and large, that was not the case. Also, he had a really annoying writing style, where he would introduce all of the upcoming stories by giving away the plot and ending of each one. Way to ruin the only thing your book had going for it, moron! I get that if you didn't do that, none of the book would actually be written by you, but then I guess you shouldn't have gleaned a bunch of stupid stories from wannabe writers instead of actual MacGuyverism's, then asked them to write them themselves

Spoilers.

There were two stories that I liked. A dude fixed his car in the middle of nowhere using a knitting needle. As I said earlier, I'm not really giving anything away here, since the author spells this out for you before you hear the story. Another guy fixes a dudes tire in a novel way. Okay then!

The rest were awful. A guy's family needs to lift a deck up a few feet so they can reattach it to the house. So they use four car jacks. Imagine that, what genious to use jacks to lift something heavy. Damn it all, they even had one for each corner! How is that a MacGuyverism? That was the exact thing thing they needed, in the exact number they needed!

A guy's apartment is hot, so he tries to make an air conditioner from scratch. All he has is a fan and a bucket. How does he MacGuyver this? He goes to Home Depot and buys all the rest of the stuff he needs. Fail!

Some girl is friends with another girl who is severely asthmatic. She witnesses a severe asthma attack, and takes the girl to to the hospital. Good so far, I guess. Then they go on vacation and the girl has a lesser but still quite bad attack. For some stupid reason she brought her inhaler, but forgot some kind of spacer for it, rendering it useless. (As an aside, why the hell would this thing be in two pieces!) So what do they do? They go out and try to buy the spacer from three different places and fail, and all the while the girl refuses to go to the hospital. They go back to the vacation house, cut the end off of a water bottle and make their own spacer, which works. Here's the thing... They spent hours driving around fruitlessly looking for this damned spacer... Idiot, you are in a car, driving your ailing friend around! Just go to the hospital anyway! Its better than dying, and they probably have a spacer for you! MacGuyver would totally just go to the hospital if he needed to, was near one, and had a car. Ha!

Then the author runs out of stories in any way relating to fixing things, then goes into his 'alcohol' section, his 'love' section, etcetera.

A guy has a band, and they run out of stuff to make martinis. They really need their martinis man! So they steal a bunch of stuff out of a hotel and make some. Stealing?! The story actually has two more parts, each lamer than the last, and it didn't remind me of MacGuyver at all... just the 'Girl Drink Drunk' segment from 'Kids in the Hall'. That was really a good show!

A loose 16 year old girl has sex in a closet with some guy she just met. He rips off her thong, tearing it. So she ties it together agaiin. Really? (Oh, and by way, she couldn't figure that out on the first try... the first time she tried to use a binder clip!)

Another girl dates some guy, then stops dating him. Later, he gets married, so she decides she loves him. She then decides she needs to get over him, so she solicits help from her creative writing group. They fail to help her, and she pines after the guy for five years, when she snapped out of it. Except she didn't even then, because she wrote this story and submitted it to this lame book.

There was a lot more, but I'm tired of writing about this abysmal book. Don't be fooled! If you must read this, I advise you not to encourage this kind of book in a monetary way! Borrow it from your local library...

PS: I just remembered the one about the guy who drank his own pee for no good reason. The way the guy wrote the story, it sounded like he was just looking for an excuse to do so. He knew it wouldn't help his thirst, he wasn't that far from water and he did it anyway. Whatever! This book is terrible.

This book is plain awful! Near all of the solutions in the book are far from true MacGyverism. The author claims he's unskilled with improvisation, he isn't lying, if he's impressed with the stories people submitted, he can't be a handy guy with quick wits. The only thing good with the book is the title, I was mislead by it and purchased the book.

Wow, you used a knitting needle to replace the pin on your clutch? great story.

This book is awful.