Book: Faking It: How to Seem Like a Better Person Without Actually Improving Yourself
By: the writers of CollegeHumor.com: Amir Blumenfeld, Neel Shah, Ethan Trex
TOPICS OF ADVICE:
The notion of buying a lot of travel gear and making up adventures to seem cultured, since traveling can be really expensive --- Funny, but BAD ADVICE
The advice on company etiquette such as never "replying to all" and refraining from emoticons in email. The examples on what not to do are also definitely accurate, so despite a lot of the bad advice it has, there is a lot of accurate information that a reader can take seriously and apply to their own experiences. --- FUNNY, and ACCURATE
But.... the advice of downing a few shots of hard liquor to relax before a company presentation--- once again, BAD ADVICE
It covers social matters in education, work life, dating, social life, art and culture, music, and sports with a general overview of important points of each section by using:
- famous painters-who to name drop, who to avoid
- genres of music-what bands to insult, to consider awesome
- overviews of famous novelists-who's overrated, obscure enough to make you seem cultured
- how to act on a date, at the office, etc
It uses phrases and humor for each section as an ultimate guide for someone to appear well informed on each topic to add a sense of finality to a discussion, which makes it easier for someone who doesn't know much about a topic to avoid discussing it further.
Review: I though Faking It was fun to read in the overviews and advice because the way it was given had a lot of humor and was really entertaining; it also made me want to to look up a lot of the artists and cultural facts it gives as examples of what to know, which kind of defeats the purpose of "faking it" because the reader actually gains an interest in the topics mentioned.
I honestly hope it's not intended as a legitimate self help book because although a lot of the advice is hilarious and interesting, there's a lot of advice that obviously isn't meant to be taken seriously.
Ultimately, Faking It is pretty hilarious, but should be taken lightly, aside from what is obviously decent advice in it.
Author's Writing Style: The authors of Faking It used a lot of humor and sarcasm in the book to differentiate self help advice and what's meant to be taken loosely. It also separates each section and is detailed specific to each one. Most important topics also have "take away points" or what should be understood by the end of the chapter.
Writer's Tip: Since Faking It a general topic of seeming well informed, any topic can really be used. Instead of using advice on how to fake being a better person, use any issue that you have a high interest in and subdivide it into sections on how someone can seem educated in the issue without actually knowing too much. An example would be How to seem like a legitimate clown without going to clown college ---just throwing it out there.. :)
P.S, I actually looked up collegehumor.com and it's funny and interesting, but it has multiple pop up adds, which was pretty irritating.
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