"Sometimes I Wish I Were Plain and Dull"

I just finished reading Youth In Revolt by C.D. Payne. I had never heard of it before reading about it on this site (referenced through Energyface). The guy and his some of his interviewees (Michael Cera, aka George Michael of Arrested Development fame) go on and on about how this is the funniest book ever written. Even on the cover of the book the illustrious Los Angeles Times says that it will be the "funniest book you'll read this year." I know that I'm not the world's foremost expert on funny, but I never once LOL'ed while reading this admittedly humorous yarn. And I don't mean LOL as in you just said something mildly resembling a joke and I am now typographically acknowledging it. I mean LLOL - Literally Laughing Out Loud, or LLOLOL -– Literally laughing Out Loud Over Literature. With David Sedaris I would LLOLOL. Many times. With Douglas Adams I would repeat sections with friends, doing voices. And we would all Laugh Out Loud. With C.D. Payne at most I grunted at a well-turned phrase, not unlike a good pun (see above, maybe). I might even dare to say that it was approximately as funny as this here blog. I'll let you be the judge of that, Los Angeles Times Readers. However, it is much more page turning than this blog will ever be, all page turning logistics aside. I think I read it just about as fast as your latest Harry Potter periodical. Highly entertaining in an early teen, sex ridden, cross-dressing, pyromaniac, and overall revolting type way. Again, like Harry Potter.

Perhaps, as some have suggested, it all comes out a bit too well for our young hero in the end. Surprisingly, I prefer it that way. The whole novel takes a strong dose of Suspension of Disbelief to get through as it is. We are meant to believe that a fourteen year old wrote all this in his diary on the fly. I got excited when the word "“pulchritude"” slipped by casually in context - a bit too impressive for a fourteen year old with an overactive libido. Maybe it is okay for a formerly sex crazed forty something's first book although.

They are making a movie of it all due for 2006 (maybe), so I will have to see that when it finally squeaks its way onto video. Like all Kurt Vonnegut movies, I'm sure it will be a Thunderous Failure of a film. Who they would target it to? It is a story about a 14 year old and his sexual exploits. It is more about misplaced youth nostalgia for adults than summer teen flick. To be loyal it should be marketed to adults who would never pay to see it anyway. In order to get it the appropriately pre-teen marketability of PG or PG-13 they would have to severely water down the story to the point of stupidity. In keeping with the film industry, I'’m sure that is what they will do.