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Bottom of The Barrel Book Reviews-Confessions of a Recovering Preppie
Posted by
samzenpus
on Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:34 AM
from the terminal-case dept.
from the terminal-case dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Michael de Mare's, Confessions of a Recovering Preppie, has
been sitting on my desk a long time, for good reason. They say you
can't always judge a book by it's cover but in this case, the
unintentionally embarrassing front is perfect. Confessions is a painfully
ordinary collection of college stories. Michael seems to have a
different definition for the word preppie than the good people at
Webster or I do. Even though the author specializes in cryptography,
he seems unable to decipher any social situation, himself or the code
to writing a book worth reading. Click below to see how confusing it
gets.
Michael de Mare is to literature what Jeffery Dahmer is to fine
dining. At least someone finally stopped Dahmer. To complain about any
one part of this Titanic failure is like complaining that you don't
like the tilt of your room, as the ship sinks beneath the waves. The
back of the book promises, "In this compelling book, he lays bare
the instructive stories of romantic adventures, intense studies,
fascinating friend-ships, highly ambitious goals, and the wit and
wisdom that can only come from the mind of those who are capable of
fathoming the black arts of advanced cryptography and computer
science." What we get is a book that has no theme to speak of. It
reads like a logbook more than a novel. I have managed to group
Confessions into three parts. Each part consists of the few
common ideas that reappear many times in the book. It also includes
the scant instances when Michael has an idea or something noteworthy
happens.
The first part lets us in on a few basic facts about Michael and his day to day activities. He hates rap. Indian students cheat. Walking makes Michael's legs hurt. He is scared of his stoner suite mate. CS students are the smartest students on campus. Michael is the smartest among them. He likes Chicken Parmesan, Bill O'Reilly, and shopping at Walmart. In this section Michael becomes aware that his friend likes to drink at parties until he is drunk. He informs us that this is called binge drinking and worries that it might affect his friend's grades. (His friend's grades are slightly better than his in the end.) Then he discovers that college kids pirate music. One of my favorite parts of the book can be found here. Michael tells a story about his second cousin who tried to get him seriously hurt on two separate occasions. The first time, Michael was tricked into riding an unbroken horse. The second, was an incident which involved milking an extremely unfriendly cow. This story allows the reader to understand that the feelings of dread and the overwhelming desire to make Michael de Mare stop are a perfectly normal reaction. It is a feeling that is shared by his family and most likely, anyone who talks to him.
Just when you are wondering what purpose the 300 pages of Confessions serve, the author takes a trip to Montreal. When a customs official is making her way through the train, asking if anyone has anything to declare, we find out the FBI is following Michael. Two FBI agents tell the official loudly that they have guns and that they are following Michael because he works for the NSA. At no point prior was the NSA mentioned and it is never addressed again. I re-read this part several times to make sure that it wasn't a dream sequence or a jump to future events. At this point, I was sure that this book was the best way Michael had of telling his friends and family that he was or planned on being, a spy.
Part two follows a common pattern. Michael hates rap. Indian students cheat. Walking makes Michael's legs hurt. He is scared of his stoner suite mate. CS students are the smartest students on campus. Michael is the smartest among them. He likes Chicken Parmesan, Bill O'Reilly, and shopping at Walmart. He learns that men, in particular, college-aged men, are easily manipulated by pretty girls. He doesn't see his stoner suite mate for a couple days so he reports him missing. (The stoner was visiting home.) This section contains what is easily my favorite part of the book. It also demonstrates how hard it is to read Confessions. Here, Michael is talking to a girl he may have some interest in but is so uncomfortable around, that you're not quite sure.
"Hi Shawna! How are you doing?"
"My circumstances are not good."
"Your circumstances?"
"Yes. They are not good."
Now I was concerned about Shawna's circumstances. They were, as Shawna had pointed out, not good. I didn't know which circumstances she was referring to, but I was sure that they were circumstances that she considered important. For this reason I hoped Shawna's circumstances would improve."
Then it dawned on me. Michael de Mare specializes in cryptography. This whole thing is an elaborate code! The de Mare code! If I could crack this book I could find out where the descendants of Jesus live and who the Illuminati would allow to win the Super Bowl next year. Unfortunately the best anagram of Michael de Mare I could come up with was, A charm I'd eel me. So I tried writing down every other word, then every third. I cut the pages into strips and wrapped them around sticks of different widths. I made a baking soda solution and brushed it over the pages. Finally I exposed it to a UV lamp and then heat from a light bulb. Nothing I did seemed to reveal a new story that someone might want to read, so I continued with the last 100 pages.
The end of the book provides the usual. Mike hates rap music. Indian students cheat. Walking makes Michael's legs hurt. He is scared of his stoner suite mate. CS students are the smartest students on campus. Michael is the smartest among them. He likes Chicken Parmesan, Bill O'Reilly, and shopping at Walmart. Michael doesn't see his binge drinking friend for a few days and somehow resists the urge to report him missing to the police. He explains how the world would have broke out into World War III if George Bush hadn't been elected president. He defends his thesis, graduates and is accepted into a PHD program. The book then ends as quickly and as uninterestingly as it started. I entertained the notion that this was actually a Walmart viral marketing campaign for a few moments. "Walmart, we got everything Michael de Mare needs and most things that normal people need too." Probably not the message the suits in marketing would want to send. Now I'm convinced that Confessions of a Recovering Preppie is actually part of Michael's work at the NSA. This book is part of an "enhanced interrogation" program. Right now a man in a nicely pressed suit and sunglasses is reading Mr. de Mare's device of unusual punishment, for the second time, to a prisoner who begs to just be water-boarded like usual. Confessions of a Recovering Preppie is not the bottom of the barrel it is in a hole five feet below the barrel.
The first part lets us in on a few basic facts about Michael and his day to day activities. He hates rap. Indian students cheat. Walking makes Michael's legs hurt. He is scared of his stoner suite mate. CS students are the smartest students on campus. Michael is the smartest among them. He likes Chicken Parmesan, Bill O'Reilly, and shopping at Walmart. In this section Michael becomes aware that his friend likes to drink at parties until he is drunk. He informs us that this is called binge drinking and worries that it might affect his friend's grades. (His friend's grades are slightly better than his in the end.) Then he discovers that college kids pirate music. One of my favorite parts of the book can be found here. Michael tells a story about his second cousin who tried to get him seriously hurt on two separate occasions. The first time, Michael was tricked into riding an unbroken horse. The second, was an incident which involved milking an extremely unfriendly cow. This story allows the reader to understand that the feelings of dread and the overwhelming desire to make Michael de Mare stop are a perfectly normal reaction. It is a feeling that is shared by his family and most likely, anyone who talks to him.
Just when you are wondering what purpose the 300 pages of Confessions serve, the author takes a trip to Montreal. When a customs official is making her way through the train, asking if anyone has anything to declare, we find out the FBI is following Michael. Two FBI agents tell the official loudly that they have guns and that they are following Michael because he works for the NSA. At no point prior was the NSA mentioned and it is never addressed again. I re-read this part several times to make sure that it wasn't a dream sequence or a jump to future events. At this point, I was sure that this book was the best way Michael had of telling his friends and family that he was or planned on being, a spy.
Part two follows a common pattern. Michael hates rap. Indian students cheat. Walking makes Michael's legs hurt. He is scared of his stoner suite mate. CS students are the smartest students on campus. Michael is the smartest among them. He likes Chicken Parmesan, Bill O'Reilly, and shopping at Walmart. He learns that men, in particular, college-aged men, are easily manipulated by pretty girls. He doesn't see his stoner suite mate for a couple days so he reports him missing. (The stoner was visiting home.) This section contains what is easily my favorite part of the book. It also demonstrates how hard it is to read Confessions. Here, Michael is talking to a girl he may have some interest in but is so uncomfortable around, that you're not quite sure.
"Hi Shawna! How are you doing?"
"My circumstances are not good."
"Your circumstances?"
"Yes. They are not good."
Now I was concerned about Shawna's circumstances. They were, as Shawna had pointed out, not good. I didn't know which circumstances she was referring to, but I was sure that they were circumstances that she considered important. For this reason I hoped Shawna's circumstances would improve."
Then it dawned on me. Michael de Mare specializes in cryptography. This whole thing is an elaborate code! The de Mare code! If I could crack this book I could find out where the descendants of Jesus live and who the Illuminati would allow to win the Super Bowl next year. Unfortunately the best anagram of Michael de Mare I could come up with was, A charm I'd eel me. So I tried writing down every other word, then every third. I cut the pages into strips and wrapped them around sticks of different widths. I made a baking soda solution and brushed it over the pages. Finally I exposed it to a UV lamp and then heat from a light bulb. Nothing I did seemed to reveal a new story that someone might want to read, so I continued with the last 100 pages.
The end of the book provides the usual. Mike hates rap music. Indian students cheat. Walking makes Michael's legs hurt. He is scared of his stoner suite mate. CS students are the smartest students on campus. Michael is the smartest among them. He likes Chicken Parmesan, Bill O'Reilly, and shopping at Walmart. Michael doesn't see his binge drinking friend for a few days and somehow resists the urge to report him missing to the police. He explains how the world would have broke out into World War III if George Bush hadn't been elected president. He defends his thesis, graduates and is accepted into a PHD program. The book then ends as quickly and as uninterestingly as it started. I entertained the notion that this was actually a Walmart viral marketing campaign for a few moments. "Walmart, we got everything Michael de Mare needs and most things that normal people need too." Probably not the message the suits in marketing would want to send. Now I'm convinced that Confessions of a Recovering Preppie is actually part of Michael's work at the NSA. This book is part of an "enhanced interrogation" program. Right now a man in a nicely pressed suit and sunglasses is reading Mr. de Mare's device of unusual punishment, for the second time, to a prisoner who begs to just be water-boarded like usual. Confessions of a Recovering Preppie is not the bottom of the barrel it is in a hole five feet below the barrel.
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The joke's on you (Score:2)
The book seems to read like the mindless, self-indulgent chattiness usually only found in Ellen DeGeneres' comedy routines but the joke's on whoever buys the book!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh... Wow... :P
Damn his writing style is boring. Seems like the most mediocre person ever. Well, I guess that means he excels in mediocrity
End This. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please. No more. These reviews are, truly, the bottom of the barrel.
The editing is worse.
-G
Re:End This. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was actually entertained... If you don't like time-wasters on Idle, how hard is it to avoid? You know, it actually wastes less of your time if you're able to refrain from clicking in, reading enough to assure yourself that you don't like it, and then posting to complain. Sure, it's a complete waste and a pointless review on a pointless book. But it's pretty easy to skip if you're not in the mood.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Doing a funny review of a bad book is all well and good, but samzenpus's meandering trainwreck of a writing style, combined with his painfully unfunny commentary and his... creative use of punctuation means that he's really not the one to be doing them.
Re:End This. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, unfortunately, this is on Books, not Idle.
Parent
Re:End This. (Score:5, Insightful)
D'oh!
I assumed base on the fact that this was a complete waste of time that this was Idle, but didn't actually look.
You are absolutely right. WTF is this doing anywhere but Idle!?!
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Is that why there was no april fools stuff this year?
Thats just sad. Stuff like omgponies is what gave Slashdot some of its charm.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot stopped the april fools jokes to appear to be a legitimate news organization [ ... ]
It did ? I thought they were now just scattered all through the year, one every couple day, to be less obvious.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The review was hilarious and well-written. Thanks.
Stuff that matters? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for occasional humor (hell, I used to be an admin on Fark) -- but I'm thinking that if Slashdot is going to be running as much crap as they have with 'idle', crappy book reviews, and criticizing their reader e-mail, that they need to drop the "Stuff that Matters" tag line.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If only the scoring went above 5.
Re: (Score:2)
Or just change it to the more accurate "Stuff that's free." The overall quality of the content is in decline, but occasionally there's still some good stuff.
The code is free. So anyone who thinks they can do a better job (or perhaps just a different job) of sifting the crap from the pile can, in theory, roll their own.
Amazon 5 Stars (Score:4, Funny)
At the time of writing, this book has a 5 star rating at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Recovering-Preppie-Michael-Mare/dp/1419663275 [amazon.com]
Re:Amazon 5 Stars (Score:5, Interesting)
At the time of writing, this book has a 5 star rating at Amazon.com
All but one of the reviews are by one-off reviewers.
I'm no crypto-genius, so I could be way off, but it smells like just the kind of cack-handed astroturfing our hero might try.
Parent
Is it really that surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction (Score:3, Insightful)
ALL students cheat! Perhaps he meant that Indian students that cheat are caught more frequently?
Re:Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, there are some cultures where cheating is institutionalized.
Dunno if Indians fall into this category but other countries do.
Re:Correction (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Good use for a rambling piece of crap (Score:5, Funny)
Start a religion based on it. It worked for L Ron Hu88ard.
Anagram (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
each lime dream
maybe we want one in French, tho:
michael a merde
Please stop (Score:2, Insightful)
Please stop putting links to "idle" on the front page.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I come to read about interesting stuff, not technology. Yes, that's right, we have taken over your nerd board. Slashdot will now be about bad books!
Book Surge (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
woo (Score:5, Funny)
Get this man a slashdot id!
Why is there a review of a vanity press title? (Score:5, Insightful)
BookSurge is an Amazon-owned vanity press. Since when does anybody, including Slashdot, waste time reviewing self-published books? Even in the "Idle" section this is stupid.
Maybe this is a thinly veiled review by the author to get a few people to buy this thing to experience its awfulness.
SirWired
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I like the review. (Score:5, Insightful)
/. gets books to review and some of them are awful. Nothing wrong with putting that on the front page. So please stop can people stop whinging about idle on the front page.
Get Harlan Ellison to do a review, then. (Score:2)
So does every newspaper, magazine, blog, and publisher.
I can count the number of times I've seen any of the above publish a review of a book from their slushpile on the fingers of one hand.
I can count the number of times I've seen any of the above do it twice on the fingers of one foot.
I can vaguely recall seeing one that was worth reading, once, but it was probably by someone like Harlan Ellison.
Tell you what, get someone at Ellison's level to do the next
Re:Get Harlan Ellison to do a review, then. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, slashdot is more informal than most newspapers. Also, you could simply not read the reviews. That would work too. But, I think a better point is that in some way, they are entertaining you, because here you are, debating with me the marits (or not) of having these reviews. Is that entertainment? If not, why are you here?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I can't depend on slashdot actually restricting the front page to stuff that at least *someone* thinks "matters" (it's clear that not even the reviewer did) then it's less useful.
Does it matter how old the miniture lego man is? Or what the latest apple rumour (to the nth degree) is? Or that article about 1Pb databases which kind of falls in to the "duh" category if you've been following Moore's law for any time at all.
In your dreams. I'm here because I had hoped that after a few cycles of this crap they'
Re:Well, I like the review. (Score:4, Insightful)
You may offer me a counter argument. Allow me to couynter with a counter counter argument...
If you don't like the idle stuff, then why did you enter this thread?
Back more to your point, not all the slashdot articles are useful. Quite a lot are very speculative, and the ones on basic science, while very entertaining, are not really useful to me, beyond entertainment. Oh, and the threads are often a complete waste of time (Someone in ther internet is wrong!--Randall Munroe), but an entertaining waste of time, so I still post.
To conclude that somewhat rambling point, I assert that the main purpose of slashdot is entertainment. So the question becomes, is idle entertaining?
Personally, I find that the hit rate for idle is about as high as any of the other sections.
Parent
That "Saved by the Bell" show ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Michael seems to have a different definition for the word preppie than the good people at Webster or I do.
You and me both. When I went to high school (early 80s), preppies were the kids who were taking college prep classes - hence "preppie". They were the ones who studied, dressed neatly, participated in sports, band, chorus, etc... and generally got good grades. They were usually from middle class families whose parents understood the value of an education. Everyone in that group wanted to be: doctors, lawyers, engineers, computer specialists, or any other white collar professional career you can think of. Preppies were usually decent kids. Yeah, there were some rich kids who had the nice cars and coasted through life, but they were the rich kids and weren't part of the preppie crowd. They were the ones who got in Ivy League schools because they were legacies or what ever.
It was NOT someone who tried to get away with conning other kids and teachers, doing little work, and just coasting through life.
Re:That "Saved by the Bell" show ... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Preppie" comes from "prep school", not "college prep classes" and the usage in your high school had nothing to do with the usual meaning of the term [amazon.com]. Your community was probably so unfamiliar with real preppies that the word was repurposed for someone completely different.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
In my high school, Preppies were usually middle to upper class family kids who's parents had gone to college and were expecting to get accepted to a college based on little more than their average grades, extra circular activities, and mediocrim of motivation. They were white, their parents had money, and they felt they were entitled to a college education. Not to say that they were hateful racists, but they had the expectations that white kids with >C averages all got to go to college. That feeling of e
Is it just me? (Score:2)
Given that knowledge, I think it's obvious what should be done.
Purpose of these book reviews? (Score:2)
Reviewing a popular book and commenting in this way would be useful and funny to all of us, since popular books and authors already get a lot of positive press, and the negative comments can be viewed as a roast in most cases.
However, in the case of a truly bad book, these effects of a bad review are reversed. For example, if the purpose of this review was to get people to laugh at a bad author, it's unfortunate that the humor has to come at his expense because the book apparently truly is bad. There are
Please NO MORE (Score:5, Insightful)
I KNOW what the url to DIGG is. If I wanted braindead lolcat crap I'd go there.
You are seriously destroying the integrity of Slashdot with Idle, the reader's mail garbage, and now this book review drivel.
Is it driving up your hits? Perhaps it is, perhaps it is also making you more money. Are you so greedy that you are willing to cheapen yourselves in this way? Why not just get into the spam industry if that's the case?
There is no value in this. It detracts from otherwise good content. You can see perfectly well that there are already many complaining. Do you not care about this site any more?
Enough is enough
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot used to be a relatively safe haven from the mass stupidity of the Internet. But recently that has changed -- that's the point. Something, presumably greed and retarded marketing droids (same thing really) has caused this change on Slashdot.
Now w
CS students (Score:3, Interesting)
Soon to get modded down as offtopic or troll, but why exactly is it that CS students think they're the smartest? What is it about knowing how to use a computer that makes for elitism? It's not like many CS students go on to cancer research with their computer skills. A few yes, but most of those were double majors in biology or were biology students taking a few computer classes.
Have you seen the Amazon reviews? (Score:4, Interesting)
There were several *rave* reviews on Amazon's websites for this book, and since the reviewers used Amazon's 'RealName' system to identify themselves, they *must* be actual people, right?
Wrong. By entering a credit card into your account with a valid number but fake name, you can get a 'RealName' that says anything (I just tried it). I strongly believe that the author has written these reviews himself:
"Michael de Mare's deadpan humor makes it a quick, entertaining read. One example of his style: his friend "Lincoln" decides he wants to run for an undergraduate political office. The author thinks to himself: "I wonder what would be the first thing he'd do if elected - maybe free the slaves?" - By Valeda Zaage
I mean, seriously? And that name? That has got to have some hidden meaning.
Re:Review? (Score:4, Funny)
Scathing words. Why is the reviewer anonymous?
The reviewer is Samzenpus.
Why are you anonymous, your words are utterly inconsequential?
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)