Hilarity Ensues

I'll give him this: Tucker entertains. His stories are for the most part well written, and his third book is a fun and easy, albeit frivolous read. As usual, a good chunk of the book is just emails to and from his friends, some dating back years. That, coupled with multiple pages dedicated to his "sexting" with his core fan base, i.e. immature and insecure teenage girls, sort of undermines his claim of being a prolific writer.

Tucker is at his best when he writes about his friends' various idiosyncrasies. The chapter about his friend Hate was by far the funniest, containing some exemplary wit.

He is absolutely at his worst when he gives life advice. The "wisdom" he imparts is shallow, hackneyed, and hardly conducive to forming good character. At one point in the book, he suggests that kids shouldn't listen to anything their parents say, that they should just follow their own rules and the hell with the norm. So, when your dad preaches the importance of virtues such as loyalty, honor, fortitude, and honesty, just ignore the old man. Very rebellious, Tucker! This is painfully cliched and unenlightened advice.

By far the most disturbing chapter is on Miss Vermont.

It reveals a vindictive, pathologically narcissistic, and petty side of Tucker. He takes extreme pride in destroying a young, innocent girl for absolutely no good reason. He comes off as border-line sadistic in challenging Miss Vermont to write her version of events. Miss Vermont didn't want stories about her private sexual encounters published on the internet (who would?), yet Tucker takes delight in revealing intimate details about their relationship. Worse, he hides under the first amendment to justify his actions. Tucker fancies himself as a champion of free speech, when the real story is Tucker's cowardice in continuing to taunt a girl, whose privacy he had already shamelessly violated. Tucker feigns indignation at Miss Vermont's hypocrisy--her preaching chastity on the one hand, and not living up to it on the other. And that is apparently good enough reason for Tucker to go after her with a religious like fervor. He almost exudes moral righteousness that comes off as incredibly petty, creepy and vengeful. In short, the Miss Vermont story makes him look really small, vindictive and cowardly.

Hilarity Ensues is a fun read--with the salient exception of the Miss Vermont chapter--but it belies Tucker's delusion that he has grown or that he is an exceptional writer. He is still petty, at times bitter, and never particularly insightful.

It is pretty well established by now that tucker max makes up and/or buys stories from other people. This should not be viewed as anything but fiction. There are multiple interviews of this joker that expose him as a fraud. His 15 minutes is more than up, and it is time for him to grow up and stop tainting the collective conscious with his tales of douchebaggery.

Aren't we a little sick of this guy?? First book was genius, but enough. Its funny in your 20's....its pathetic in your 30's. If we stop buying this guys books....maybe he will have to put his JD to good use. GO TO WORK, Tucker Max! Your parents must be so proud.
Tuckers' next book.....will be a memoir about STDs.

In "Hilarity Ensues" not only do you get to bear witness to Tucker Max at his comedic best, but you also get a few deep peeks in on the existential struggle that's only rarely bubbled just barely to the surface in his past books. The book is much much funnier than AFF, and although it's not as consistently funny as IHTSBIH, it still hits the same hilarious high-notes.

At times the book comes across like the autobiography of a Brett Easton Ellis character - someone whose life you're horribly compelled to follow but whose abject detachment from reality is almost impossible to process.

Whether you've been a fan of his rise to fame or been a schadenfreude spectator of his crash-and-burn cinematic career, you'll enjoy the laughs just as much as the times Tucker awkwardly pulls back the curtain on his own embattled psyche. In a way the absurd dichotomy between spending dozens of pages ripping on Katy Johnson's childish cartoons (easily the worst part of the book) and breathlessly insulting her existence from every possible angle, but then finally ending the section about her with what seems like a chivalric and heartfelt apology along with an attempt at taking on her monstrosity of a mother is just as absurdly comical as the intentional humor.

To really appreciate "Hilarity Ensues" you first have to read the biographical spread on him in Forbes magazine that was released in January of 2012, shortly before it came out. In it you'll learn about Tucker's recent forays into psychoanalysis and his own pained efforts to stop being such a raging jackass so that he can start to build a normal life - one that's not built around hiding from his own issues inside as many bottles and confrontations as he can find.

With that in mind the moments of moral genuflection within the book make a certain sort of sense - in attempting to justify his behavior and couch it within some sort of larger moral framework Tucker bares a soul he clearly isn't very comfortable with. His advice about rebelling from what your parents and society want you to do assumes that everyone had the same unstable upbringing as he did, so it doesn't apply to every reader - but at the same time there's a legitimate sincerity and more than a little truth behind it.

This book likely marks the end of the Tucker Max the literary world has cringingly come to know for the past decade, like Thompson without drugs or Hemingway without a bottle it's hard to imagine Tucker creating compelling writing without being a drunken jackass. But that's not to say what comes next won't be worth following, what other beginning "Hilarity Ensues" marks the start of will hopefully be as entertaining as the past ten years of debaucherous adventures.

In "Hilarity Ensues" not only do you get to bear witness to Tucker Max at his comedic best, but you also get a few deep peeks in on the existential struggle that's only rarely bubbled just barely to the surface in his past books. The book is much much funnier than AFF, and although it's not as consistently funny as IHTSBIH, it still hits the same hilarious high-notes.

At times the book comes across like the autobiography of a Brett Easton Ellis character - someone whose life you're horribly compelled to follow but whose abject detachment from reality is almost impossible to process.

Whether you've been a fan of his rise to fame or been a schadenfreude spectator of his crash-and-burn cinematic career, you'll enjoy the laughs just as much as the times Tucker awkwardly pulls back the curtain on his own embattled psyche. In a way the absurd dichotomy between spending dozens of pages ripping on Katy Johnson's childish cartoons (easily the worst part of the book) and breathlessly insulting her existence from every possible angle, but then finally ending the section about her with what seems like a chivalric and heartfelt apology along with an attempt at taking on her monstrosity of a mother is just as absurdly comical as the intentional humor.

To really appreciate "Hilarity Ensues" you first have to read the biographical spread on him in Forbes magazine that was released in January of 2012, shortly before it came out. In it you'll learn about Tucker's recent forays into psychoanalysis and his own pained efforts to stop being such a raging jackass so that he can start to build a normal life - one that's not built around hiding from his own issues inside as many bottles and confrontations as he can find.

With that in mind the moments of moral genuflection within the book make a certain sort of sense - in attempting to justify his behavior and couch it within some sort of larger moral framework Tucker bares a soul he clearly isn't very comfortable with. His advice about rebelling from what your parents and society want you to do assumes that everyone had the same unstable upbringing as he did, so it doesn't apply to every reader - but at the same time there's a legitimate sincerity and more than a little truth behind it.

This book likely marks the end of the Tucker Max the literary world has cringingly come to know for the past decade, like Thompson without drugs or Hemingway without a bottle it's hard to imagine Tucker creating compelling writing without being a drunken jackass. But that's not to say what comes next won't be worth following, what other beginning "Hilarity Ensues" marks the start of will hopefully be as entertaining as the past ten years of debaucherous adventures.

In "Hilarity Ensues" not only do you get to bear witness to Tucker Max at his comedic best, but you also get a few deep peeks in on the existential struggle that's only rarely bubbled just barely to the surface in his past books. The book is much much funnier than AFF, and although it's not as consistently funny as IHTSBIH, it still hits the same hilarious high-notes.

At times the book comes across like the autobiography of a Brett Easton Ellis character - someone whose life you're horribly compelled to follow but whose abject detachment from reality is almost impossible to process.

Whether you've been a fan of his rise to fame or been a schadenfreude spectator of his crash-and-burn cinematic career, you'll enjoy the laughs just as much as the times Tucker awkwardly pulls back the curtain on his own embattled psyche. In a way the absurd dichotomy between spending dozens of pages ripping on Katy Johnson's childish cartoons (easily the worst part of the book) and breathlessly insulting her existence from every possible angle, but then finally ending the section about her with what seems like a chivalric and heartfelt apology along with an attempt at taking on her monstrosity of a mother is just as absurdly comical as the intentional humor.

To really appreciate "Hilarity Ensues" you first have to read the biographical spread on him in Forbes magazine that was released in January of 2012, shortly before it came out. In it you'll learn about Tucker's recent forays into psychoanalysis and his own pained efforts to stop being such a raging jackass so that he can start to build a normal life - one that's not built around hiding from his own issues inside as many bottles and confrontations as he can find.

With that in mind the moments of moral genuflection within the book make a certain sort of sense - in attempting to justify his behavior and couch it within some sort of larger moral framework Tucker bares a soul he clearly isn't very comfortable with. His advice about rebelling from what your parents and society want you to do assumes that everyone had the same unstable upbringing as he did, so it doesn't apply to every reader - but at the same time there's a legitimate sincerity and more than a little truth behind it.

This book likely marks the end of the Tucker Max the literary world has cringingly come to know for the past decade, like Thompson without drugs or Hemingway without a bottle it's hard to imagine Tucker creating compelling writing without being a drunken jackass. But that's not to say what comes next won't be worth following, what other beginning "Hilarity Ensues" marks the start of will hopefully be as entertaining as the past ten years of debaucherous adventures.

I have to say from the top, that I had never read any of Tucker's books before. I laughed until I cried the whole way through, and maybe that's because I wasn't familiar yet with his sense of humor.

In a big picture sense though, Hilarity Ensues says a lot about Tucker as a writer and a lot about our culture. Tucker's similies and analogies are on par with those that belong to CS Lewis, and his scene-setting is better than the James Patterson type garbage that pollutes most of our bookstores.

You'll enjoy this book if you have a sense of humor and you'll hate it if you don't. Of course it's in the humor section, but this is really a collection of stories about capitalism, friendship, living in the moment, counting your blessings, and knowing your strengths and weaknesses.

And that brings us to the biggest truth that "Hilarity Ensues" illustrates: There are four kinds of people in this world. Tuckers, Hates, Miss Vermonts, and Bunnys.

You may disagree with that assessment, and you may be right. The problem is, it's the Tuckers of the world that tell the best stories. Those that tell the best stories are the ones that document history. The world will be remembered according to their accounts.

This book is a lot more of the same stuff as his last books, which is exactly what I was looking for. If you liked his other books, you will like this one.

This third book is nothing new and not funny. I have found myself only reading it when I am waiting in the DMV or for my dentist appointment. The stories have the same flow: got drunk, made fun of girl, had sex, next day felt sick... then repeat throughout book. As one reviewer wrote, this book is for teenage boys who dream of a life like his one day.

Boring. Save your money and get something else. (His first two books were really funny so read those if you haven't.)

Not as good as his first 2 books but still very entertaining. If he writes a 4th book I will get that one too. Tucker Max always makes me laugh!