Date Started: July 17, 2015
Date Finished: July 20, 2015
Book Acquisition: Borrowed from Will
Overall Rating: 4/5
Apparently I mostly read on planes this summer. Started it while traveling to Texas, finished it the day after returning. I did have to reread most of the parts I read while on the return flight, though, as I didn't sober up until I was somewhere over Alabama.
Anyways, here are a couple standout quotes from the book...
1. "It always fascinated my that the people who liked George Strait and Billy Ray Cyrus were equally enamored with linear, highly structured dance choreography that offered no spontaneity whatsoever. Line dancing reminds me of the way Great Britain used to fight land wars." (
2. "how to properly fire an employee...concede that you've both made mistakes, but stoically admit that you can't fire yourself."
3. “Thomas Jefferson is, hands down, the coolest president in American history. Now, this is not because he wrote the Declaration of Independence, although I will concede that has merit; Thomas Jefferson is history’s coolest president because of the advice he gave to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark before they explored the Northwest Territory in 1804. One of the many things that Jefferson warned Lewis and Clark about was mastodons. "You dudes need to watch out for potential mastodon herds,” he told them (I’m paraphrasing). “If you see any mastodons, make sure you tell me about them, because I need to know.” Tragically mastodons had become extinct 10,000 years before the expedition started. However, this is still solid advice. I mean, I’m taking the same path Lewis and Clark took (more or less), but nobody told me to watch out for mastodons. Where is the love?"
I also learned that a man named Gutzon Borglum is responsible for both Stone Mountain and Mount Rushmore.
Overall, I liked this book enormously. I read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs a couple months back and now I just love Chuck. He is incredibly self-centered but in an amusing way. I think that's partially because I like his writing style and partially because he's so damn unapologetic about his vanity. This entire book is framed around his relationships with women (past, present, and imaginary), which seems highly relate-able. It's easy to obsess about relationships. Although, honestly, I'm finding it easier to not obsess about my relationship with Will than I thought it would be. Perhaps there was some benefit to my many months of alone time post-Thomas? Or maybe it's because I didn't expect to end up in a relationship with him? Whatever the reason, I'm quite glad I did stumble into this relationship. Will kisses me with such purpose. Purpose might not be the right word, but there's something about the way he kisses me that makes me wonder if I've ever been well kissed in my life. Even those bullshit goodbye kisses on Monday morning (when it's early and I'm generally hungover and always mad that he gets to sleep for a thousand more hours) he manages to rouse himself enough to kiss me in a way that makes me want to crawl back into bed and not sleep.