Review: Failure Is an Option: An Attempted Memoir

Failure Is an Option: An Attempted Memoir by H. Jon Benjamin
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

While I admire this guy's ability to read his own work for his audio, I was at a complete loss when I started. I had no idea who this guy was and had downloaded the audio online so I had no filler papers to read about. It wasn't until the end of the book that he mentions Archer and Bob's Burgers, so clueless readers like me are very clueless. Throughout.

I rarely laughed, and I'm all about shit jokes. But I just didn't find it funny. I also don't want to be his friend and feel sorry for those who are, because he doesn't seem very loving or caring. He's a selfish asshole. I honestly wondered why he had even been asked to write a book--are voiceover artists really that successful in this day and age? People are buying this stuff and finding it funny? Huh. Guess I'm old. The chapter about the president pets stuff was horrible and the fillers where he sarcastically tried to interview academics just felt sad. I didn't understand the purpose of the book. To entertain? To tell his life story? Neither felt successful.

As for the audio production, he obviously does accents okay, and there were a few occasional odd spaces between words, but I imagine he was trying to be funny. I didn't hear any skips or anything, but his voice was so droll and I was so bored that I just wanted it to be over already.

I'm not usually this grumpy about memoirs, but I was mad that I had to listen to this on my drive.

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