[Audiobook]
By: BJ Novak
Narrated by: BJ Novak (with special appearance by some of his famous friends)
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Dates Listened: Jan. 24 - Mar. 12
Length: 6 hours 48 minutes
Source: Overdrive App
Why did I read it?
What I really wanted to listen to was The Bassoon King by Rainn Wilson but it had a super long hold list. This one showed up when I searched Rainn Wilson's name so I settled.
I have so many mixed feelings with this one. Sometimes it was terrible and sometimes it was good and sometimes I just wanted to smack BJ Novak in the face.
Let's start with the author. BJ Novak was one of the writers for The Office, one of my favourite TV shows. The office was hilarious. BJ wrote his own character for the show Ryan. Ryan was the worst. BJ Novak annoyed me playing Ryan. His acting was blah. His character was super annoying. The fact that he gave himself a spot in the opening credits even though he was less important than Stanley or Angela always bugged the crap out of me. I'm not the biggest BJ Novak fan.
Listening to BJ Novak read me his own book annoyed me to no end. His voice was still annoying. The intonation of his voice reminded me of Ryan and how much I didn't like him. I wish someone else read his book. It would have helped it be a little better. I loved when his friends took a character because that meant I wouldn't have to listen to BJ anymore...at least for a few moments. His 'The Office' friends came - Mindy Kaling, Jenna Fischer, and Rainn Wilson - plus some other friends. It was nice hearing any of them read as long as they were not BJ.
The writing itself was sub par. The actual writing wasn't very good - he is not very good at writing in prose. He stretched out the useless stuff and skimmed over the exciting. I think it would have been painful to read the actual text so I am glad I listened instead.
One More Thing is a collection of short stories and these varied in their "goodness." Some of them were really creative ideas. The best ones were when he took a well known thing like the Tortoise and the Hare or the "two trains are travelling to the same point how long will it get there" math problem. He took stories we all knew and loved and made them new and funny and thought provoking. However, some of the stories were really dumb (and not because they were supposed to be). Some were also pretty inappropriate. I think he meant them to be a funny inappropriate but they were just plain old inappropriate.
I won't lie to you. It is hard to write a review because of how very little I like B.J. Novak. Overall, approximately a quarter of the stories were good, the writing was bad, and the narration was the worst (unless it was a friend doing the narrating).
Rating: 1.5/5
This book doesn't get a hated because there were some redeemable stories. It's about as close as I could get to hating a book without actually hating it though.
Recommendation:
If you actually like B.J. Novak you might like this book. No promises though. The writing is still pretty bad.
