Monday, November 10, 2008

I JUST WANT MY PANTS BACK by David J. Rosen

I've discovered a new genre, and I'm calling it dicklit. This refers to books with plots about men trying to score.

Of course, this novel is not just about sex. It's also about booze and illegal substances enjoyed by our hero, slacker ad-guy by day, horny lush by night. It's about the trouble he gets into trying to achieve his objective (see paragraph 1 above). In the process of finding himself and accomplishing his objective, he loses his Dickies pants in a one-night-stand. The rest of the story is about getting his pants back, hence the title. No, it's not symbolic, and the pants are not metaphysical concepts.

This book offers a lot of laugh out loud moments, which gets you excited to read more, thinking there is more. Rosen is a witty, entertaining writer, and he probably should be given another chance to write a novel. Because this one needs some major redemption. I was hoping underneath all the smut, there would be nuggets of wisdom, that his coming of age story would be about coming to terms with the need to grow up. Sadly, the book ends just a teeny, tiny bit better than when it started. The hero lands a marginally better, though not necessarily better paying, job. But he's still the slacker lush character the author started with. Worse, he doesn't even get his pants back. (sorry, spoiler)

Not worth the full price I paid for it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice review, Ge.
Where do you find the time to do all these? I might get this book. It might be describing me.

Ed

gege said...

Hi Ed. I bought this book from the US. When I bought it, I thought it was describing the male version of me. :)

It's hard finding the time to read and then blog about it. I have a backlog of 7 books and a dozen restaurants now.