Review: Rude Bitches Make Me Tired

Title: Rude Bitches Make Me Tired: Slightly Profane and Entirely Logical Answers to Modern Etiquette Dilemmas
Author: Celia Rivenbark
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: October 22nd 2013
Source: Netgalley & St. Martin's Griffin

★★

Two stars.

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Rude Bitches Make Me Tired is, according to the blurb, a sassy, modern-day etiquette guide that will help the reader learn how to react or what to say in a particular situation. It's written in a question & answer format, like an advice column in a newspaper or magazine, and covers broad topics including children, dining out, and airplane travel.

Unfortunately, the advice wasn't very useful. I understand that Celia Rivenbark is a comedic author (and this book made me laugh more than once), but there is very little actual life advice in this "guide"- it's often sacrificed for the sake of getting another joke or jab in. Such as, when she recommends that you put unruly children in the overhead bin of the airplane.

In addition to the obviously (or, I hope at least) satirical advice like mentioned above, some of the more sound advice I completely disagree with. For instance, that if there's something on a menu you don't know how to pronounce, don't order it, because it'll make you sound like a "doofus". As someone who has often attended dinners where people are confused by the menu and amount of silverware, this is nonsense. Order what you want. Also, that you should ALWAYS tip your waiter. I've worked in restaurants, and if a server is god awful, a server is god awful.

She also comes across as pretty rude and judgmental herself throughout this book. Like when she mentions that pregnant women should "get over themselves" and accept people touching their stomachs. How about no? Step off away from my body. She also down talks people with in memorial tattoos, and suggests that all things prepared for a funeral have to be hand made. When you're crying your eyes out, you don't care what food is home made or not. And what about those who mess up even a boxed cake mix? Oh, and then there's the bit where she judges how teens use leet speak, but then uses phrases such as "like" and "OMgod." Add in a few gender/gay jokes and a few cheap shots at Chaz Bono, and that's pretty much the tone of the "advice".

There was another part of this book that bothered me, but it's not the fault of the author. I have this issue with a lot of different books, as I'm sure my readers have noticed by now. Pop culture references do not make your book seem cool, they date it. This book makes reference to things like Jersey Shore and Breaking Bad- things that are already passe. It gives readers, or at least gave me, the sense that this book is already old news.

Now, despite all of the negatives that I've written about above, this book does have some good points to it. For one, the title. It drew me in immediately, because it sounded like a book my bitter, drunk sister would write, and that promised a few good laughs. And I did laugh, sometimes a lot, sometimes barely. Plus, every once in a while, there was a bit of advice that was really dead on and accurate, to the point that I wanted to cut it out and glue it to peoples' faces. The main one that struck a chord with me was that it is ridiculous to have baby showers for ALL of your children. Having recently attended a FOURTH child's baby shower- PREACH IT!

I think that a lot of people will find this book hilarious, and I think that I would have liked it more had it been labelled as a satirical or joke etiquette guide as opposed to a genuine one. But because that's what I was expecting, this book fell far short of what I wanted. There are some good jokes but also a lot of bad advice. Read it for a laugh, but not to become better mannered. Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.