Man Seeking Woman (originally published as The Last Girlfriend on Earth)
And Other Love Stories
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4.5 • 75 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In Center of the Universe, God struggles to balance the demands of his career with the needs of his long-term girlfriend.
In Magical Mr. Goat, a young girl's imaginary friend yearns to become "more than friends."
In Unprotected, an unused prophylactic recalls his years spent trapped inside a teen boy's wallet. The stories in Simon Rich's new book are bizarre, funny, and yet...relatable. Rich explores love's many complications-losing it, finding it, breaking it, and making it-and turns the ordinary into the absurd. With razor-sharp humor and illustrations, and just in time for Valentine's Day, Rich takes readers for an exhilarating, hilarious ride on the rollercoaster of love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Man, boy, and beast traverse the slippery slope of love in the latest effort from young funnyman Rich (Elliot Allagash). The collection launches with a bang of sorts, cleverly relaying the tale of an unused condom in the charming "Unprotected." Narratives of invisible CIA agents, sex-starved aliens, and Neanderthals follow, and each skewer the notion of modern romance in stylish, quirky prose. But over the course of 30 stories, repetitive premises and redundant punch lines lead to disappointment. A feeling of d j vu sinks in as men and women find themselves attached to a series of wacky lovers, from sirens and trolls to Mother Teresa and Santa Claus. Also, characters, regardless of age, gender, or occupation, often speak with the same blunt, slacker quality, such as the priest who, after exorcising a man's apartment of his ex-girlfriend, says, "That's, like, the most fucked up thing I've ever seen." Nevertheless, the book contains gems. "Victory," a surreal chronicle of one man's successful bedding of a model, complete with congratulatory phone calls from both the president and the MacArthur Foundation, is genuinely funny. And "The Present," which concerns a time-traveling professor and is devoid of the collection's general cynicism, is both admirable and moving.
Customer Reviews
Funny, funny, funny
I've only gotten through the first third if the book, but I've been laughing out loud on the subway for the last hour for my long commute from Brooklyn to Queens. Great stuff, Nd not just the insider NYer things. Just very well told little stories with the huge dose of dumb male truth. Digging this so far! Can't wait to finish.
Hilarous!
Loved the book. As a gay dude, I'm not altogether familiar with the heterosexual mating ritual. This was an excellent introduction. Very funny. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was I wanted more stories. Read it and laugh out loud like I did.
Jeffrey tradd shields
Not a single word spelled corectally