Book Review: Worst. Person. Ever. by Douglas Coupland

As I begin to write this review, I’m not really sure how I actually felt about this book. As the title suggests, the main character is a bad person, someone so despicable you can only shake your head at his wretched antics, finding yourself shocked when he carries on a semi-polite conversation with someone else in the book for longer than a couple of seconds. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it, but that doesn’t you mean you should read it either. Let me explain…

I guess what I found most troublesome about this book is the silliness of it all. I don’t typically like ‘silly’ books, mostly because I want to feel like I’ve accomplished something by reading it, but as other reviews have suggested, you should read this book in one sitting, because it’s not a deep piece of thoughtful literature that you should return to time and time again, after having time to contemplate what’s between the covers. Maybe that was my mistake with this book-I shouldn’t have read it over the time span of a week, it gave me too much room to actually think about what I was reading, rather than just plowing through for the fun of it.

There are a few things going for this book. Similar to a Chuck Palahniuk book, the absurdity and foul language come together to create the perfect plot and read for someone like my husband, who (apparently), loves this sort of thing, and got a real kick out of the passages I read to him aloud. Although he barely reads, he seemed to really enjoy the snippets I shared with him, and because one of the last books he read in its entirety was Tell-All, I’m not surprised Worst. Person. Ever. seemed to delight him.

There’s no point in me giving much detail around the plot of this book, because it’s really secondary to the intent of the story (or at least, what I imagine Coupland’s intent is, or resembles). Raymond Gunt (yes, I know) gets hired to work on a reality television show being shot on a remote island somewhere in the Pacific, and its his adventures of not only reaching that island, but his time on the island and the people on it that make up the majority of the story. Instead of trying to entice people to read it, I should probably warn people instead: don’t read this book if you get easily offended by racism, sexism, or foul language. If you enjoy the game Cards Against Humanity and can appreciate a good laugh, even if its at someone else’s expense, you’ll probably like this book, or at least get a real kick out of the dialogue and ridiculousness that comes along with it.