Happy Cruelty Day!
Daily Celebrations of Quiet Desperation
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- USD 11.99
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- USD 11.99
Publisher Description
For everyone looking to find a little extra magic in a life with little to celebrate, Happy Cruelty Day! is here. Beginning on January 1, this book features 365 new holidays, each accompanied by a strange, dark and humorous short story explaining the day you woke up in and how to celebrate it. These 365 daily doses of delight, perversion, and nonsense include "Hire Someone Attractive To Pretend To Love You Day," "Hang on to Your Wide-Eyed Innocence Day," "Sit in Abject Terror Day," and, of course, "Cruelty Day."
Far more than just a humor book, Happy Cruelty Day! is like a daily instructional manual written by a psychopath. On one page, the book has you joining a community crime watch group in an effort to make friends (it won't work). Flip the page, and you'll find the details of your attempt to rescue your husband from a POW camp (you'll fail). Flip it again, and Happy Cruelty Day! will have important insight into how best to befriend a runaway teen (offer her some soup).
These holidays celebrate everything from that pivotal point in your life when everything changes, to the day you're not going to do anything but sit on the edge of your bed and get very drunk. When people realize they've fallen in love, or when they realize their love was just a lie. And of course, when love of whatever incarnation brings an index finger to clench tight around the trigger of a gun.
Raw, ridiculous, and laugh-out-loud funny, this is a sharp-edged satire on the subtleties, shallowness, and stupidity of daily life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Though comedian Powers may be tongue-in-cheek when he says to disregard the instructions of the 365 short vignettes on how to "devote yourself to a life of passion, vengeance, and heartbreak," readers may ignore this cobbled-together, flat collection. Powers proposes that each day of the year be distinguished by its own unique holiday, a structure he uses as an excuse for his dark and not all that funny musings. Selections include the muddled message on race relations in January 14's "When You Overturn the Hyundai at Tonight's Race Riot, Make Sure the Chicks Are Watching Day!" and May 30's "The Sk8r Boy Who Can Help You Day!" in which the title character provides a cure for cancer and relationship troubles. In March 1's "Sit in Abject Terror Day!" Powers details instructions for a dramatic anxiety attack about one's "flat, static" life. On December 17 "Your Favorite Yoga Position Day!" Powers reports that when asked why they do yoga, most people say, "Because I was told it will make my bowels stop aching when I am all alone in the night." This volume will only appeal to those with the most tortured sensibilities. 13 b&w photos.
