A Portrait of Yo Mama as a Young Man (Paperback)

by Andrew Barlow (Author), Kent Roberts (Author) "When people look at yo mama's wedding photos, they remark that she looks "haggard..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, Annual Grammy Awards

Editorial Reviews

Review
Praise for the Case Against Yo Mama

“Much like the churning angst suggested in an El Greco sky or the sudden clarity accompanying (if lucky enough) a midmorning evacuation, A Portrait of Yo Mama As a Young Man earns our trust, applause, and perhaps more important, our non-hard-earned dollar. Be careful—contents inside have been deemed . . . funny!” —David Cross

"Not your average James Joyce autobiographical novel/snaps send-up. Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts have done it again!" —Carol Kolb, Editor-in-Chief, The Onion


“Humor books are a dime a dozen. Funny humor books are much more precious: a dime a half dozen, absolute max. And high-concept funny humor books that include charts and graphs, family trees, Mad Libs, and even a standardized assessment test? I’m not sure I have ever seen one. Oh, wait. I have. This is it. Now you have seen it, too. Now buy it and laugh until milk comes out of yo mama’s nose.” —Ben Greenman, author of Superbad and Superworse

“Too many paper cuts.” —Yo mama, laughingstock

Product Description
Yo mama sucks.

For years, everyone has talked about yo mama, pointing out her failings in important areas such as appearance, mental capacity, and weight. Now, two researchers and retired sewer cartographers have spent over a decade investigating yo mama, assembling a wide range of evidence against her. They stalked, photographed, and studied the horrible woman who brought you into this world—yo mama—then compiled their findings.

The result is A PORTRAIT OF YO MAMA AS A YOUNG MAN. This unprecedented exposé proves once and for all that the woman who is arguably dearest to you in life—yo mama—is stupid, crazy, a failure, physically unattractive, deceitful, a bad mother to you, unthinkably overweight, and worthy of only ridicule and disdain. To make this case, the authors present you with graphs, field notes, charts, Mad Libs, and various primary source documents. Crying, you’ll learn what you never wanted to know from a text that is readable, contemptuous, and factual.

Here is some of the evidence you will find in A PORTRAIT OF YO MAMA AS A YOUNG MAN: yo mama’s résumé, her last will and testament, her internet searches, personals she has placed, e-mails yo mama wrote to you while you were in college, and numerous charts and graphs. From this thorough and authoritative work you will learn facts such as:

• Yo mama says “comprised” when she means “composed,” as in, “I am comprised mostly of grease and sugar.”

• Yo mama’s so lupine, she chases rabbits.

• I had sex with yo mama and it was horrible. Just a horrible, horrible time.

• Yo mama got two wishes from a genie.

• If nervous tics were pizzas, yo mama would have five pizzas that freak everybody out.

• And the opinions of a variety of observers, including a taxi driver (“Yo mama’s so stupid, she doesn’t know how to get to 4653 Greenwood Terrace”) and Nietzsche (“God is dead. Yo mama is just really decrepit-looking.”)

Drawing on a substantial research budget and the strong stomachs they acquired from working in America’s sewers, Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts got closer to yo mama than anyone else ever has. They even experienced the infamous battle between yo mama's head lice and body lice of 1992. All in all, you will not find a better biography of yo mama. Authored by two of the funniest twentysomethings writing today, this absurdist take on the oldest joke in the book—the “yo mama” snap—is warped, witty, ironic, and, frankly, sad in places.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (March 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400050723
• ISBN-13: 978-1400050727
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #998,936 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart and extremely funny, May 18, 2005

By	Joseph Braston (Denver, USA) - See all my reviews

Very, very funny book. It's a play on the "yo mama" joke (a clever idea), but much of the humor transcends the concept. I have laughed out loud at this more times than I can count. Absurd insults appear along with witty twists on things like internet search wordings, kidspeak, Nietzsche, legalese--and it's all about, well, your mom (known to a lot of us as "yo mama"). Some of the short pieces are among the sharpest and strangest things I've ever seen. (Especially recommended are the e-mails from yo mama to you in college.) Overall laugh-out-loud hilarious, often sublime.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very entertaining, March 28, 2005

By	Tom T (Chicago) - See all my reviews

as amusing as the title would suggest. picked this up off my friend's coffee table with a laugh over the weekend, after initially mistaking it for the Joyce namesake.

a great meld of highbrow/lowbrow, completely irreverant of course. excellent book to read a chapter from when you need something fun to change your train of thought. imagine these guys had a good time writing this...

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seriously Funny, March 23, 2005

By	sriden "sriden" (Jamaica Plain, MA) - See all my reviews

Reading it now. It's milk-out-of-your-nose funny. The concept is genius: an elaborate multifaceted insult of "Yo Mama." The execution is just perfect. (Charts and graphs included.) Recommend it to anyone whose sense of humor ranges beyond the territory covered by Everybody Loves Raymond. (With no offense meant to Ray Romano.)