Book #23

The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen

An offensive, in-your-face, brutally honest and completely hilarious look at male inner life and sexual fantasy—sure to be one of the most controversial books of the year.

This book is a piece of shit.

It wasn’t difficult to perceive, before picking this up, that it was going to be filled with misogynistic crap, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how pointless and pathetic the story was in itself. The narrator is a self-obsessed, sex-obsessed little man who can’t look at women without wondering what they’d look like sucking his dick. We also hear his enlightening thoughts on fat women, disabled women, and ugly women (all of which, by the way, he would still fuck), whilst following him along on his vapid quest through life.

The characters were craply defined, there was no sort of development to speak of, no journey. The love of his life turns up with a great body, a high appetite for sex, and oh my god she actually plays Halo. When describing her video game abilities the phrase for a girl was used. Come on.

I’m not sure what the author was trying to do here. If he’s trying to get us to hate the narrator, well done. If he’s trying to showcase the extremes of toxic masculinity, then he’s got it in one. But naming the book in the way he has, and by not being capable of writing a plot with any real direction, he has lost me completely. It was a piece of shit.