Rating: 
Summary: Nick Hornby with more confidence and flowery language
Review: A breezy quick read that is fun and interesting. Its yet another "male confessional" type, but, its well done, and kind of unique, and full of great observations on life and women and dating. The language is rather flowery (one of the differentiators from the other 'male confessional' types) and the situations more mature than the others. Rick himself, seems a little arrogant, and most of his friends and GF's seem like a bunch of jerks, but, I guess thats just good writing.A good book, I will have to check out his other stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: lifestyles of the silverspoon writers in NYC
Review: Ah yes.....how wonderful it is to know that writers backed with ivy league MAs in Journalism or English and some family connections or a few lucky breaks through the literary world can join the lifestyles of the rich and famous.... men who can give up their nine to five jobs because they have the luxury to write stories about disrespecting women and playing head games with women and make money from it; enough to boast about their past conquests and new found fame and how their book is to be an insight into the male psyche for male and female readers a like; How entralling it is for us all to read about rubbing shoulders and elbows with B-list and now A-list celebrities; CAD reminds me of the new genre of literature out there: akin to reality tv but reality literature; where authors can write about their foibles because they already lead lives a notch above the reader trampling about with Manhattan up and coming socialities and gallavanting at dinner parties in the Hamptons; Would anybody care to read about some working poor or middle class Average guy's exploits with women in Iowa or Manitoba or Indiana who works some everyday job and socializes with folks who most of us pass by on the street everyday or who take public transportation to get to work? Would his maltreatment of women receive the same notorious accolades or would the women themselves appear as exciting if they sold cosmetics at some discount drug chain rather than own restaurants or be medical students. After reading CAD I went back to my first love which is reading non-fiction. The whole onslaught of navel gazing, poor me and I had a metamorphisis life changing experience that helped me turn a new leaf reminds me too much of the new trend in our society: reality tv/reality media/reality literature...but for most readers it does not depict their real life reality and that is why there is a market for that genre of entertainment-whether it take the form of a novel or television game show. Personally, I wish Joe Canadian was a real guy. I think I would have far more enjoyed his take on women since those beer commercials made me more proud to be a Canadian than the reality self-engrossed-money making-sex sells writing that a former Canadian shared in his part memoir/part fictional novel CAD.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful and entertaining
Review: Although he does not appear to be a natural Cad, as other reviewers have said, intellect, wit and strategy can be much stronger and more effective forces. I don't doubt that this, along with his success has made him irresistable to women. He is the first one to say when he has been rejected; it's not like he's living in a fantasy land. As a woman, I appreciated his classification of the women he dated: nurturer, collaborator, ego-booster, etc., and how none were better or more necessary than the other, but that it depended on each man's preference. It seemed that it really wasn't about what the women actually offered though, but about how they played the game i.e. the first one to crack (say 'i love you') gives up the power. Illene held out the longest, while maintaining fun and playfulness, and so she became his first choice for a wife. It's a very interesting and true (i think) look into a typical man's mind. THat's why I read it and that's what I got.
Rating: 
Summary: Funniest book since Lucky Jim
Review: And that blurb is from my former live-in gal pal, so Cad clearly has chicks-appeal. Zippy little book. Can't wait for the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but not 'literature'
Review: Coming out of an early marriage to a somewhat lost young woman, Rick Marin decides to embrace a "love 'em and leave 'em" single life. Readers who enjoy "Bridget Jones" type books or Cosmopolitan magazine will enjoy this male perspective on the NYC dating scene. For much of the book, the writer works freelance, including writing articles for fashion and beauty magazines such as Allure and Mademoiselle. Although his work may address things naive women can do when 'he' doesn't call, the writer is more cavalier in his own life--he doesn't call because he never had any intention of calling you and doesn't care. Many of the female characters in the book are self involved, insecure, or just flighty, offering some amusement in the cavalier treatment they receive from the cad. The vulnerability of some of these women sheds some unflattering light on the writer at times. Consistent with other stories of this genre, the writer grows into an adult during the course of the book. Treatment of a family tragedy is conveyed well and with empathy, without being overly sentimental. However, the final pieces where the writer finds true love aren't consistent with the rest of the novel and feel like they don't quite fit. Overall, a novel with some literary pretensions that manages to entertain most of the time.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but not 'literature'
Review: Coming out of an early marriage to a somewhat lost young woman, Rick Marin decides to embrace a "love 'em and leave 'em" single life. Readers who enjoy "Bridget Jones" type books or Cosmopolitan magazine will enjoy this male perspective on the NYC dating scene. For much of the book, the writer works freelance, including writing articles for fashion and beauty magazines such as Allure and Mademoiselle. Although his work may address things naive women can do when 'he' doesn't call, the writer is more cavalier in his own life--he doesn't call because he never had any intention of calling you and doesn't care. Many of the female characters in the book are self involved, insecure, or just flighty, offering some amusement in the cavalier treatment they receive from the cad. The vulnerability of some of these women sheds some unflattering light on the writer at times. Consistent with other stories of this genre, the writer grows into an adult during the course of the book. Treatment of a family tragedy is conveyed well and with empathy, without being overly sentimental. However, the final pieces where the writer finds true love aren't consistent with the rest of the novel and feel like they don't quite fit. Overall, a novel with some literary pretensions that manages to entertain most of the time.
Rating:
Summary: Hysterically funny
Review: Every guy goes through a lot of what Rick has but it's in the telling that makes this book great. You have to laugh out loud when you read it. I suspect there is insight as well for the women out there who wonder what the hell men are up to as they vainly try to sort their twisted love lives.
Rating:
Summary: American Cake
Review: Fantastic recounting of a modern male's interaction with the female species. Can't live with them, can't live without them.
Rating:
Summary: A Jolly Ride.
Review: First off, the title for the book is potentially misleading. Mr. Marin is not a cad as he is neither unprincipled nor ungentlemanly throughout the majority of his interactions. At one point a woman he works with wants to set him up on a blind date and he says "I have a girlfriend. I can't take her number." This is not the response of a cad. In the eyes of this reviewer, it appears that Mr. Marin is well within the range of average behavior for a man or woman in America throughout the 284 pages in which he describes himself. He is not a saint or a demon. At one point he even recites the motto of all anti-cads by saying that "sex is not enough."
Marin's is a story with great universality. His work will resonate with many unmarried straight people and there is much truth in it. His observation that "I'd spent so much time 'pouring my heart and soul into being insincere,' I'd forgotten how to act with a girl I actually liked" is an unhappy predicament that affects countless single adults. Re-igniting lost idealism and optimism is a highly daunting task and a foremost reason as to why finding love later in life is such a struggle. Those of us in our thirties all have emotional baggage and it invariably means that sometimes one has been brutalized in the past and can now be brutalizing in the future. This is true regardless of one's sex as we inflict pain but also have it inflicted upon us. Mr. Marin is far from an exception to this rule.
Much of Marin's status seeking in the memoir can be attributed to the old Orson Welles quote about men making civilization to impress their girlfriends but the narrator amends the saying it by changing it "to get girlfriends." He spends tremendous mental capital in the pursuit of making his career as a journalist a success but often finds that he needs monthly subsidies from his parents just to get by. Work is as chancy a venture as love is for Mr. Marin. It seems that his internal makeup and character are nearly insurmountable obstacles to Marin getting what he wants and needs out of life as he lacks the quality of 'decisiveness', which is one of the worlds greatest virtues, and his indecisiveness in all things sabotages his numerous opportunities.
What drives the action in Cad... is the author's attempt to recover and stabilize his life after the debacle of his divorce. This traumatizing event is key to any understanding of our aging anti-hero. In his three year marriage, Marin was flayed and flambéed by his ex-wife severely. By any configuration, his was an awful marriage. His narration humorously documented: "...even our goldfish were committing suicide. I found them on the floor halfway between the door and the window. Making a break for it, maybe. I didn't blame them." Marin had met a girl who cuckolded him and he ignored every portend of their relationship's doom ("after we were married, she was still introducing me as her 'friend'").
This book is a jolly good ride and, therefore, easy to recommend. Unlike other tell-alls, Marin never takes himself too seriously and shows that he can laugh at himself. One of my favorites lines is illustrative: "She called me an 'opportunist,' because I went to publicity events for the free booze. I'm a journalist!' I protested." Cad is a major surprise as the misandry embossed onto the back cover gave this reviewer a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, but, in the end, it is a far more valid description of the single life today than what one finds in practically every other memoir or publication.
Rating:
Summary: Garrison Keillor Funny
Review: Funny and entertaining book. It made me think of Garrison Keillor's recent work. But speaking as another DC Elizabeth who had her heart stomped on by a cad it hit too close to home.
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