Book Review Special: Beach Reads

We just got back from a family trip to beautiful Hilton Head! We had a lot of fun kayaking, running, and of course reading! Here's the books I completed while on our trip:

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Right off the bat - not the most fun read. This is just about as depressing a read as you could possibly have. Plus, it's a bit of a slog because it's written in alliterative - which grounds you with the Oklahoma family but gits purty tirng affer a while. But holy of-the-moment books - this Dust Bowl story is an amazing encapsulation of the immigrant experience - even if those immigrants are from another state. Reading about how banks forced the Oklahomans off of their land, how they put everything into their cars in the belief that there would be plenty of work in California - just to find out they were caught in a capitalist game and everyone resented them being there - if you ever wonder what it's like to be the people who cross over our border, this is it. Eight out of ten hot dogs.

Stupid TV, Be More Funny by Alan Seigel

Not only is this a book about The Simpsons, it's a book about the first ten years of The Simpsons - some of the best and funniest TV ever made! This book examines how the series got made in the first place, how the three main leaders (James L Brooks, Matt Groening, and Sam Simon) inspired everyone else who worked there, how everyone dealt with quick success, and how they continued to bring the funny for a full decade despite going in thinking they were only going to get to 13 episodes. The book concentrates on the writers, and while they can be hard to keep straight they were fun to learn about. Plus, lots of 80s and 90s nostalgia! Fun read - eight out of ten hot dogs.

Blood Feud by Martin Rooney

Let me start off with this: I respect the heck out of Martin Rooney. First of all, I almost certainly ran into him whenever we wrestled Sayreville in high school (we were different weight classes, though, so we definitely never wrestled). I also already have a collection of his books - workout manuals and inspiration. Before Covid, before my office went to an open workspace, I used to have some of his sayings pinned up around my cube. And when he decided he was going to write a fictional thriller, I knew I had to pick this book up. Because he did it - he put in the effort, he wrote a book that's out of his wheelhouse, and he got it published. So before saying anything else, I want to say how much I respect Martin Rooney.

Now...this book did not agree with me. Rooney was really leaning in on making his main character an anti-hero along the lines of John Wick or Jack Reacher. But an anti-hero, in his essence, needs to have a little bit of light that makes you think he's a good person underneath, if we could just dust him off a little bit. Lee Cain, on the other hand, ties up a doctor and his wife and sets them and their house on fire. And it's not the only time he did that - he also set someone on fire at a bar in Mexico in the 90s for the crime of making sure a woman was okay.

Lee Cain is not the bad guy in this book - the doctor in this book is "bad" (although perhaps not "burn him alive" bad) - but this book could easily be told from someone else's perspective to show Cain as the villain. On top of that, Cain never loses and never seems in danger of losing - never "shows a little @ss" as they say in professional wrestling (even Hulk Hogan got his ribs broken by King Kong Bundy - to make sure you'd buy a ticket to their showdown at Wrestlemania II). Throw in some questionable politics and this made for more of a headscratcher than I'd hoped. All props to Rooney, but not a fan of this one. Five out of ten hot dogs.