Texts from Last Night

I like to think I have a wide open point of view on humor. My DVD library has a ton of Monty Python, lots of modern comedy, lots of classic comedy, and many things in between. I enjoy teen romps and adult humor. I am all for sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll in liberal doses. I also enjoy the wild world of social networking and texting. So I thought "Texts from Last Night" by Lauren Leto and Ben Bator would be a casual, fun read. This book collects up random text messages that people have sent (usually while drunk) and presents them for public consumption.

The problem is that probably 90% of the texts appear to be from people who aren't 21 yet and who are just discovering the world of puking their guts out while having sex, and peeing at the same time. People are falling asleep in their pee. Falling asleep in their vomit. Vomiting while having sex. Peeing while having sex. Laughing because their friend just pooped while having sex in someone else's vomit. I think you get the picture.

This might have been funny on one page. Maybe even two. But by the time you get to page 100 (I'm guessing here, they don't actually number the pages) it is so old that it is like stale pee and vomit. This is a small scale book so some pages just have two text messages on them, or maybe three. Even so, that is far too many.

You have exchanges like this:

1) she is unbelievable! ever pee on a girl?
2) not while she was awake.

Ha ha ha. Ho ho ho.

Or maybe -

"I just thought you should know I puked up a penny"

Hilarious?

Or maybe

"Allegedly i woke up at 5am sat in the dishwasher and peed"

A barrel of laughs, indeed.

Most of the humor in here is the "fun" of talking about throwing up, or the fun of talking about poop and pee. I imagine it's from people who never felt free to talk about these things before and they are very excited to have the opportunity to talk freely about them. That excitement usually wears off after a year or two. I really don't get any great thrill of telling people about my pee and poo at this point. I've got lots of other things we can talk about, and pee and poo are relatively boring. I guess it's the same with anything in life. If you just got your new car you probably talk about it non stop every day, about how it does X and Y and Z. After a few months you are used to the car and talking about it, and that incessant need has faded.

So if you are brand new to the world of sex and vomit and pee / poo, this could be the book for you. It shares the love of those body functions. However, if you have already gotten past that stage and find talking about these topics to be pedantic if not a bit childish, then I would definitely take a pass. I can't even think of who I would want to pass this book along to.

Texts from Last Night on Amazon.com

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