Booknote: White Whine

Streeter Seidell, White Whine: a Study of First World Problems. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2013. ISBN: 9781440557132.

Genre: Humor
Subgenre: social observations
Format: paperback
Source: I bought this cheap at Ollie's Bargain Outlet (and I will be passing it on). 

I wanted to like this book, but it really missed the mark. This book is another example of a book based on an Internet meme. Books like this often try to expand or exploit the momentary popularity of the meme, but they rarely succeed. More often than not, books like this are a brief flash in the pan and then end up in the remainder pile, which is where I found this one.

Streeter Seidell's White Whine: A Study of First World Problems just tries way too hard. The book does have some funny moments such as white whining over the lack of "white history month" (because apparently the whole year of white history is not enough for those asshats), and whining about lesser people, real or perceived. The problem with the book is the author drowns the white whines. He wants to play social scientist, and he writes paragraph after paragraph setting up and explaining the white whines. By the time you are done reading his stuff, the fun is mostly gone and deflated. In the website, you get some caption or funny comment, but it's the whines that shine. In the book, that is not the case. In fact, white whines are fairly scarce in this book. It's like the author just needed to hear himself more than letting the jokes show through.

In the end, the book was just OK (barely); it had just enough for me not to outright hate it. This was clearly a quick attempt to cash in; it could have been better. This is one that I recommend you skip. If you must read it, borrow it because it's not really worth the price even as a remainder or used title. Better yet, just go to the website and get the jokes directly from the source.

2 out of 5 stars (barely).