Customer Reviews

The World's Worst: A Guide to the Most Disgusting, Hideous, Inept, and Dangerous People, Places, and Things on Earth

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

 

 

"The World's Worst" is really entertaining as far as it goes, but a cursory review of this morning's newspaper suggests that it should have been a much longer book. Still, each of the book's fifty short chapters is quite witty and enoyable to read. Among the entries: kopi luwak, the world's most disgusting beverage, which involves processing coffee beans through the digestive tract of a civet cat (can't wait to order that at Starbucks); the most disgusting fruit (the durian, "like eating ice cream in a sewer"); the most gruesome bug bite (revenge of the brown recluse spider); the worst-smelling flower ("corpse flower" says it all); the world's worst molasses-related disaster (it killed 21 people in Boston in January 1919, so apparently "molasses in January" isn't so slow after all); the most disgusting behavior on an airplane (I think I'd rather take my chances with the civet cat); and the lamest former dictator (now living on his Mom's couch).

"The World's Worst" is light, fluffy, entertaining and a quick read. And it's very sequel-friendly--the next volume(s) will no doubt be just as amusing.

Indeed, this book made me laugh and grossed me out. All good, in my opinion.

My beef is that although the book is 176 pages long, it really has about half of that in content. Each "chapter/entry" starts off with a whole page dedicated to a sentance stating what the subject is, "Most Disgusting Drink", for example. Then the entry usually starts off in the middle of the next page. The lay out of this book makes it seem like it's a lot longer than it really is. Take a look at the example. I would have hoped for a longer tome.

Mr. Frauenfelder has scoured the globe for interesting bits of trivia related solely by their ability to horrify. Whether natural perils or stomach turning drunken antics, the book holds one's attention. Perhaps in reading of such events and things we can take solace in our normal and safe lives. Seriously, who first decided to make a drink out of berries scavenged from the dung of a wild cat? Who first opened a fruit that smells like rotting flesh and decided to taste it?

My only complaint was that the format was extremely limited. Perhaps in keeping with the jocular tone of the work the author didn't want to get into too much detail, but detail is precisely what makes many of these things fascinating.

If you have a friend or acquaintance who is discouraged, this would be an excellent gift. Perhaps we have an innate need to constantly reestablish that things can always be worse.

If you like the topic, dive in this book.
It is fun but do not take it seriously.
Half dirty laundry, half soapy mambo jumbo gossip. BUT IT IS FUN!

The title and the cover graphic says it all. For the right niche in the right situation, this book would be, at least briefly, a focus of attention and a source of gross-outs, accompanied by snarffing, moaning, and tittering laughter (oh, sick!). Simple and superficial, it could be advertised in one of the Scholastic book catalogs. Probably most appreciated by 12 to 16 year old boys. Could be a fun xmas stocking stuffer. Whoa.

This book consists of a couple dozen "chapters" of 2-3 pages each. Each chapter focuses on an arbitrarily-chosen "world's worst/disgusting." A few choices are debatable - - I would reverse the order of the two most disgusting beverages, both described in the same chapter.

The writing style is light and generally amusing but not laugh-out-loud funny. The book is likely to appeal most to pre-teens and teens because of the grossness (content is PG-13 in places), but adults can enjoy it too.

Aside from the fact that it could be funnier, my main objection is just that it's really short, what with the small page size, low page count, large number of title pages (one per chapter) and drawings. I read it in a half hour, and would have been happy to read it longer had there been more to read. But I passed it on to the rest of the family, and so we got some collective value from it. If longer, it would have earned four stars; call it 3.5.

All I can say is that this book was fan-to-the-tastic! I just could not put it down. It kept me so amused that I wanted to go out and give Mark Frauenfelder a big hug. The headless rooster is intruiging and I could read that story all day long. And The Most Stubborn Soldier made my sides split in laughter. And you, dear reader, would be Word's Stupidest Consumer if you didn't buy this immediately.

Once again, this awesome author has put together another book that I could not put down! Mark is such a talented writer who found such great sories for all of us to enjoy. This book is filled with such interesting, funny, page-turning short stories it makes me want more, more, MORE!!! Hurry up with book number two on the World's Worst.

From the unusual to the bizarre this book holds your interest throughout.

You wonder where and how the author was able to research the information provided.