One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“One More Thing” by B.J. Novak is a funny, dark, cynical, deep, well-written collection of short stories. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook because several famous comedians/celebrities and Novak himself read the stories.
While there’s a grab bag of different tones throughout the stories, there’s several stories that have a real grit to them. While sometimes this grit is housed in some absurd scenarios, there’s no mistaking that there’s some truth behind them. There’s not a lot that made me stop and think, but the ones that did were definitely worth pondering.
One of the stories that stands out to me is “We’ve got to do something about Willie.” The set up is that a group of male friends in their post-college life are trying to establish themselves in their careers and adult lives. One of the friends, Willie, appears to be living the good-life a little too hard. His instagram pics show a guy who’s prone to partying hard and seems to have punched his ticket to alcoholism. The other guys in the group decide to stage an intervention and lets just say it doesn’t go as planned. It’s a harsh reminder that social media doesn’t reflect someone’s real life, for better or worse. Also, check in on your friends from time to time in person.
I recommend this book because it shows that literature can be fun, it can be serious, and it can be all of them at the same time.
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