“Great. Like always. Mary Roach, self-described “goober with a flashlight” delivers.
Some jerkoff in The New Yorker felt like there were too many jokes in this book, or that Roach’s formula failed her this time. If you don’t already know how I feel about that review (I DID just call the reviewer a jerkoff), then I’ll clarify: that person’s kind of a jerkoff.
Seemed to me they were all put off because it seems like Mary Roach is having a laugh at the expense of soldiers, which A) isn’t true and B) means we were cool having a laugh at astronauts and cadavers in Roach’s previous books, and those folks are pretty brave, important, and exposed if you ask me.
I thought the critique was especially weird because this book, of all of Roach’s I read, finished on a very sweet, thoughtful note. Well, I thought the critique was weird until I remember it was a book critic, so the person probably didn’t even read the damn thing.
And you know what? If you don’t see humor in the idea of stink bombs, this clearly isn’t the book for you. Nor is this the Earth for you. Because there is A LOT of smelly shit hanging around here, and some of it’s pretty comical. “