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TOTAL FRAT MOVE

“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” So quoth Dean Wormer in Animal House, where the frat boys...

Steve Stifler writes a book…with his elbows.

If you’re wondering what your Greek-pledged son or daughter is up to at school, this is your guidebook—and you won’t be happy with how your tuition money is being spent. If your son is like Bolen, then he’s drunk and obsessed with bagging at least a 7. (Bolen’s peers will understand.) If your daughter is like one of Bolen’s hookups, then she’s not a woman but a “slampiece” who, if she wishes to succeed, will have “two trophy-worthy tits.” The unnamed campus on which Bolen’s book is set, one that, by appearances, is somewhere on the Gulf Coast, is awash in cocaine, bourbon and vomit; whether classes are actually taught there is anyone’s guess, but to judge by this woeful treatise, it’s an activity of quaternary importance at best. So is the world outside the frat house, the milieu of “tiny Asian women in a Malaysian sweatshop sewing shoes” and other such unworthy, unpinned members of society. To call this portrait of “Greek” life obnoxious is to risk understatement, but the ideal reader will be similarly allied with a fraternity, will be a braggart about sex, will not have sex without the assistance of alcohol, will not spend a waking hour without a beer, will own a large flat-screen TV and will have only the slightest shred of self-awareness. Readers without these qualities will want to pass. Suffice it to say that Stifler, that preternaturally perfect exemplar of the frat mentality in the American Pie series, was detestable but funny, whereas Bolen, by this account, lacks the latter attribute.

“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” So quoth Dean Wormer in Animal House, where the frat boys sometimes went to class. Someone tell Bolen.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4555-1503-5

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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