The Bastard’s Handbook / Wayne Johnson

Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Humour

Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

US born Wayne Johnson moved to the UK to take up a job as a journalist. However, at the age of 30 Wayne caught the travel bug and for a year moved around the world to various exotic locations. Wayne then became a travel writer, as well as a novelist.

You can learn more about Johnson on his website.

Description:

The Bastard’s Handbook is a manual for men, basically how to be a better bastard towards your friends and women in general. It contains information on how to steal your best friend’s girl, favourite sexual positions, how to recognize different types of bastards, how to borrow money and never pay it back, and must have bastard accessories.

Appraisal:

There’s really not much to say about The Bastard’s Handbook, either you’ll like the humour or you won’t. For example there is a section about dumping your girlfriend for someone better:

Wait for her to make the first move and then kiss her with false passion, holding back tears due to the fake raw emotion will only add to the effect. Then if the situation presents itself have your wicked way, remember there is nothing better than to prey on the emotionally needy.

This is a very mild quote in comparison to some of the suggestions.

There are chapters on quotes by famous bastards (e.g. Napoleon), bastard categories (like lucky, dirty etc.), how to get more sex, how to cheat on your partner, suitable music and books and careers as a bastard among others. It can get a bit repetitive. For example, there are 37 types of bastard plus another section called ‘Other Bastard terms’ where a further 12 are listed.

The dropped capital T in the above heading is as it is in the book. This was quite typical. The version I reviewed looked thrown together. There were large gaps between lines and paragraphs and there were many and repeated punctuation and spacing errors.

Unfortunately, I didn’t laugh once. I once read How to be a Complete Bastard by Adrian Edmondson, a spin off from a UK comedy series, The Young Ones. At the time I loved it, however, I was 16. Perhaps that’s the problem…

FYI:

Frequent strong language and sexual references.

Format/Typo Issues:

Format and punctuation errors, several misspelled words.

Rating: ** Two Stars