This book had some great elements that just did not come together in any cohesive way

Rob Delaney is apparently the funniest man on Twitter. I am not on Twitter, but I recognized some of the tweets in this book, so he must be funny enough to register on my non-Twitter radar. He acts, some. He’s also a decent writer, with a very sad and painful history of alcoholism that has led him to some very bad decision-making. Unfortunately, he combines all these elements (humor, career, alcoholism, stupid stunts) into one short collection of stories, with no sense of direction or cohesion.

“I looked out over a sleepy, twinkling Manhattan as I plummeted into the night. It was wonderful and visceral, like my mind and body were violently wiped clean and rebooted to take in the majesty of the experience.”

Delaney’s alcohol abuse started young, and went hard for years. He tells quite a few stories here, most of which he comes off looking pretty bad in — lots of wetting the bed and car accidents. He also tells some “cool” stories — like illegal bungee jumping off the Manhattan Bridge. Between each chapter is a collection of his very funny tweets. Honestly, if the whole book had been a story of alcoholism and recovery (think Kristen Johnston’s Guts), it probably would have been very good. Or if he’d just focused on funny stories, like his tweets, that would have worked, too. But the whiplash between the two left me unsettled, like he couldn’t tell how serious to be about a very serious problem.