The Day I Turned Uncool: Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-up (Paperback)

~ Dan Zevin (Author) "LIKE MANY reluctant grown-ups, I've always had an aversion to the activity of golf..." (more)
Key Phrases: caretaking tendencies, place every other week, drum lessons, Miss Leona, Sister Madonna, Week Abroad (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

?This is one of the great feel-good books of all time, if you?re my age. If you?re some punk of thirty-nine or less . . . suck it up, dude. It gets so worse.? ?P. J. O?Rourke

?A shrewd and witty observer of Gen-X mores . . . Zevin has a prose style that?s a blend of Dave Barry and P. J. O?Rourke.? ?The Boston Globe

?If Dan Zevin?s so uncool, how come he?s so funny? This is a witty, sharply observed book about the embarrassing compromises and guilty pleasures of adulthood.??Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Joe College

?Dan Zevin is so uncool he?s cool. His cogent and hilarious self-deprecations are literature?s answer to the elasticized waistband: They forgive.? ?Henry Alford, author of Big Kiss -- Review

Review

“This is one of the great feel-good books of all time, if you’re my age. If you’re some punk of thirty-nine or less . . . suck it up, dude. It gets so worse.” —P. J. O’Rourke

“A shrewd and witty observer of Gen-X mores . . . Zevin has a prose style that’s a blend of Dave Barry and P. J. O’Rourke.” —The Boston Globe

“If Dan Zevin’s so uncool, how come he’s so funny? This is a witty, sharply observed book about the embarrassing compromises and guilty pleasures of adulthood.”—Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Joe College

“Dan Zevin is so uncool he’s cool. His cogent and hilarious self-deprecations are literature’s answer to the elasticized waistband: They forgive.” —Henry Alford, author of Big Kiss

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Villard (June 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812967224
• ISBN-13: 978-0812967227
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #697,408 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hip to Be Square?, August 24, 2002

By	Virginia Lore "rumtussle" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hey, I'm 36. Six years ago I was crashing in laundry rooms in houses with, as Dan Zevin puts it, "more roommates than rooms." I strode through the streets of Seattle after dark without fear, carrying kicky little handbags made of cola cans, and met most of my ever-changing circle of boyfriends through personal ads in an alternative paper. Now I'm hooked up with one person, own part of a condo, and the hippest thing about me is my actual hips, which have broadened to accommodate my two kids. So OF COURSE I'm gonna' find Zevin's book-The Day I Turned Uncool-better than anything I've read this summer. It's like reading my own diary. And of course I'm gonna' find this book funny. Hilariously funny. Milk-through-your-nose hilariously funny.

I identified most strongly with three basic themes in Zevin's essays First, there is a sense of ashamed of privilege or ownership ("I Take Pride in My Lawn," "I Joined a Health Club," "I Hired a Cleaning Lady"). Second, there are signs of aging ("I Am a Figure of Authority", "My Social Circle Has Shriveled and Shrunk", "Getting Dressed is Getting Harder"). And third, there are essays reflecting a general fear of drifting into even deeper realms of the uncool ("Going Out Has Been Replaced by Going Out to Dinner", "The World is No Longer My Oyster," "Paternal Instincts are Plaguing Me"). I identified so strongly I read passages of this book to anyone who would listen. My partner, my brother, the other Mommies in my toddler's playgroup-we all compared notes and found this book to be truer than true. Ruefully true. And funny. Did I mention funny already?

But when I read some passages to my parents, who still find Willie Nelson cool, they shrugged. Sure, it was amusing, but they thought Zevin had a long ways to go. So yeah-I would have given this book 5 stars. I'm a Gen Xer who was once glad to have enough money for a bottomless cup of coffee and am now glad to have an IRA. But it looks like the appeal is limited to me & my kind.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Confession: I Am Too Old For This Book and I Liked It Anyway, June 10, 2005

By	takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

As someone who is well into middle age and still grappling with the idea of growing up and being an adult, I loved reading Dan Zevin's startling confessions ("I went to a wine tasing", "I am a figure of authority", etc.). I still feel like an imposter when I do something grown up like spackling or buying insurance.

Some of Zevin's confessions have been done to death ("I take pride in my lawn", "I engage in home improvement projects"), but he's easy to take and makes even these stale subjects fun to read about.

Where he really gets funny though, is when he is ticked off. One of the funniest essays is about his participation, as a freelance journalist, in an etiquette class for eight- to twelve-year-olds. The teacher is prim and snooty and Zevin is outraged at the idea of a class where the kids are taught to suck up to the teacher and to be as uptight as she is. So he befriends the class slacker.

Another chapter that stands out is when Zevin and his wife visit Zevin's younger (by fifteen years) brother in Spain. His brother is spending a semester abroad, just like Zevin did so many years ago. He compares the diaries he kept as a twenty-year-old single dude in Denmark with his "adventures" as a thirty-five-year-old married guy who thinks he might be catching a cold.

Anyone who is funny is compared to Dave Barry, and Zevin is reminiscent of Barry sometimes, but I hope that he doesn't go stale like Barry and start to pull out the booger jokes whenever he's hard up for a laugh. No matter how much you are reluctant to grow up, there are some things that just aren't as funny coming out of a fifty-year-old.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh no! Zevin is describing my life!, September 15, 2005

By	Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I'm a bit younger than Zevin and he's already describing my life, so I got a glimpse at what is coming up. This book is a quick read--a series of short entries on topics from lawn care to home improvement to the breaking of those decades-old appliances from your college days to teaching students at a local college. Zevin is a master humorist who delivers his message quickly and with a punch.

The absolute highlight of the collection is Zevin's essay which alternates passages from his journal during his junior year abroad with his experiences fifteen years later visiting his younger brother in Spain. Junior year was THE MOST INTENSE experience, closing down bars, being "stoked," sleeping in train stations, and finding truth and beauty in music and literature. That travel journal is juxtaposed brilliantly against Zevin's demand for creature comfort and different pace at age 35. "Confession: The world is no longer my oyster."

Zevin could be called a male Sandra Tsing Loh, but he gets to his point a lot faster and isn't whiny. This is a fun book, a quick, digestible read, and a great gift item for anyone in their late twenties or mid-thirties.