EVERYBODY CURSES, I SWEAR!

The career arc of a TV personality who has "made a career and an art form out of swearing."

First-time author Keagan—the host and producer of VH1's Big Morning Buzz Live and the co-creator and lead anchor of YouTube's No Good TV—has thrived with her alternative to the tame, publicist-approved celebrity interview; instead, she encourages her invitees to be spontaneous and unfiltered, including the freedom to curse. When she tells her guests that "anything goes," they drop their guards and admit they feel liberated. While they are unrestricted, the challenge for her was to walk “a fine line between being fun & friendly, flirty & filthy, and being respectable…while I was being R-rated, the goal for me and my writers was to do it with intelligence and precision. More Howard Stern than Stuttering John.” Through her thousands of interviews, Keagan has learned that celebrities have "a penchant for profanity,” and she encourages readers to embrace vulgarities and reject prudish, proper language. Under the pretense of being authentic, the author describes Hollywood players and the pecking order with hundreds of inane synonyms for sex acts and body parts. This extends to dozens of sophomoric expressions for her own breasts. Keagan also includes several interview transcripts (Sandra Bullock, Nelly, Matt Damon, Quentin Tarantino, and others); unfortunately, they aren't especially humorous on the page and will make readers wonder if they were funnier on-screen. Despite the author’s endless enthusiasm and claims that these conversations were transgressive, they just don’t translate to print. Readers who agree with Keagan's premise that "people tend to get too hung up on words instead of the intent behind them”—or enjoy reading dozens of instances of celebrities swearing—will find plenty to entertain, but the author’s lack of sophistication and pointed social commentary make this 400-plus-page book a chore.

Though her approach might be a "shock to the system" for some, it will be crass and tedious to many.