The Reluctant Metrosexual : Dispatches from an Almost Hip Life

Rating:
Summary: Bk. travels well, as any (reluctant) metrosexual might
Review:
I just returned from a trip to Cancun, and the experience was definitely enhanced by taking The Reluctant Metrosexual along with me. I (a Jearthy girl, Peter's term for those of us who are Jewish and outgoing) had the book in my clutches on the flight, and Peter's wit and transporting stories made the time pass at warp speed. I also read on the hotel balcony, and his tales of love's promise, love's loss and life's trials and tortures -- the kind specific to big city life -- washed satisfyingly over me. Having completed the book, I took Dave Eggers with me to the beach, but he wasn't nearly as entertaining or insightful. I recommend The Reluctant Metrosexual to those who want to bring, in a highly literate way, a little voyeurism and vicarious living into their day.

Rating:
Summary: Wannabe Flops Big
Review: As mentioned by a reviewer below, this self-styled, supposedly-self-deprecating wannabe hipster has written a shallow, not-funny book. He tries hard to be funny in every sentence, which gets tiresome (and fails). All the expensive-name-brand-dropping had me rolling my eyes. If he was showing any talent whatsoever back in law school, I think it was a mistake for him to drop it for "his life as a writer" instead. I get the feeling that this collection of essays was meant to attract the same audience that reads authors like David Sedaris and David Rakoff. Those authors, however, have genuinely comic voices and some hilarious stories to tell, whereas Hyman may not be lying when he asserts that he's just out to catch the wave of a trendy concept. (Perhaps not unlike the difference between "homo" and "metro" in general?)

Rating:
Summary: The boy has skills!!!
Review: I picked this book up on a whim thinking it would be an interesting diversion from the novels, biographies, and science books that I normally read and I was pleasantly surprised. This is one of the best pop culture books that I have read in a while. Peter Hyman has a witty dry style that takes time to get used to but after the first two chapters he had me. I purposely slowed the pace of my reading so I could stretch my Peter Hyman fix across as many days possible.

The writing is tight in all its wordiness and veiled references to books I have never read and will probably never read but this is Peter Hyman's style. The chapter on his foray into Mexico where he was promptly shaken down by their goon squad known as the police was particularly funny. I found it hard to discern when he was trying to be funny or thoughtful. This is much easier to pick-up with a writer like Al Frankin who changes his flow and modifies his word choice.

He calls this a collection of essays but it is more like an autobiography of a man who has very little to write about. He graduated from college dropped out of law school and suffered the loss of a few relationships here and there. He strikes me a person who over thinks situations and is susceptible to post-mortem Romanization. This is not an incitement of the man, it's a simple observation. When he talks about the wife and white picket fence and 2 ½ children he yearns for he sounds like child away from summer camp who wants to go home.

This book may be nothing more than an exercise in self-indulgence but I am glad I had an opportunity to read it. Peter Hyman's niche may lie in his ability to write about nothing and turn it into something that sounds semi-profound. I don't know what he is going to write about next but I would buy anything that Peter Hyman published so long as he doesn't talk about Italian shirts again.



Rating:
Summary: Interesting and funny, but not 4 star literature!!!
Review: I read this book for my book club. While I enjoyed it and was amused, I thought it was too full of pop culture references that would cause this book to be meaningless in a handful of years. Each essay was fine, but to read them one after another, was too much. I think the format of magazine articles or newspaper articles would have served this author much better. And I could glean no logic behind the order of the essays in the book, further emphasizing them as more suited to a series of articles rather than an actual book.

Rating:
Summary: Glib, sardonic, mildly amusing
Review: In The Reluctant Metrosexual : Dispatches from an Almost Hip Life peter Hyman provides an updated window into the slacker lifestyle. This slacker genre has always baffled me--what is the attraction of self centered, overeducated lazy louts in our society? I've tried reading several of these sorts of novels and have no idea what the attraction is supposed to be.

At least chick lit--the other current trendy genre of the moment--usually provides some sort of plotting to wrap your attention around. That isn't the case with the slacker genre--and that's not the case here, although as a series of "essays" this book has at least an excuse for it's rambling.

Hyman is a pretty good writer. The problem is he hasn't much to say, so he tries to compensate with what amounts to a non-stop stand-up comedy, stream of consciousness style of writing that has it's moments but quickly wears thin.

All in all, one of the better slacker books I've read, but that's pretty much damning with faint praise with this genre. Spend your $$$ elsewhere.


Rating:
Summary: "the funny book"
Review: Like many others, the potential for hilarity drew me to this book. As a fellow New Yorker, over the last few years I have seen the proliferation of the metrosexuals. Obviously, this book is about more than that.

Often, I read this book on weekend mornings while my son was playing with his toys or watching a little tube. And I was constantly letting out little giggles and laughs. So much so that my son has termed this book "the funny book". He began to take the book and pretend to read the prose. Every 30 seconds he would let out a laugh - just mimicing his old man.

Not great literature - but a very, very fun read.

Rating:
Summary: It Takes One to Know One
Review: Peter Hyman is the banner bearer for the sensitive man. He is the male equivalent of Gloria Steinem carving away at the male mystique. I laughed until I laughed a little bit more. Mr. Hyman describes his life and travails in a very introspective, detatched way that adds humor to situations where there should be none. He squeezes his lemons and ends up with lemon drops. Mr. Hyman's essays assured me that I was not alone out there.

Rating:
Summary: The writer's life in the big city
Review: The Reluctant Metrosexual is a mostly enjoyable collection of autobiographical essays by Peter Hyman, a single (apparently unhappily so) thirty-something writer who identifies vaguely with the "metrosexual" label. Metrosexual is the latest cutsey expression, along the lines of yuppie and bobo, useful in marketing books like this one. It refers to a heterosexual man, usually educated and urban, with somewhat feminine preferences in cultural matters (at least from a more traditional macho perspective). Hyman only identifies with the term in a lukewarm way and pretty much confesses that he is using it as a marketing gimmick more than anything else, although he does have the requisite interest in dressing well, fine dining and interior decorating to fit the basic description. Most of the essays are not especially pertinent to "metrosexuality" but are more like a Sex in the City from the male perspective. In several chapters, Hyman relates misadventures concerning his dating life, including a series of dates with women who vomited on their first date with him and an awkward foray into the world of swingers. Hyman's style is glib and self-deprecating, which I found tiresome after a while. He begins the book with the rather obvious ploy of fending off would-be critics by confessing "This book is a pompous exercise in self-aggrandizement that tries too hard to be funny and displays the author's undernourished but delusional sense of his own importance." Of course, autobiography is almost by definition an exercise in narcissism. If Hyman didn't feel the compulsive need to continually call attention to his defects the reader wouldn't be so aware of them. Whether it's his perceived failure with women or his employment status (or lack thereof), Hyman is constantly pre-empting attacks on his dignity by putting himself down.

The Reluctant Metrosexual contains more than a few amusing and insightful passages. Some of Hyman's recollections shed light on the contemporary internet dating scene (home to many "serial daters" as Hyman tells it, to use yet another catch phrase of the new millennium). His account of being a lowly (at least as he describes it) fact checker for a magazine if nothing else exposes the social insecurity concerning hierarchy at such status conscious places of employment. Behind his humor, Hyman has a fairly cynical and dour worldview. He constructs a thick wall of blase worldliness around all of his perceptions, but it seems more like a pose than his true nature, which he reveals to be quite sensitive. Unlike someone like Candace Bushnell (author of Sex In The City), Hyman doesn't seem quite at home in the world of urban sophistication but still feels the need to act the part.

I might have liked the book better as a more unified work rather than a group of only loosely linked stories. Some of the chapters, isolated as they are, are a little weak in material. Hyman's life is not especially exciting or unusual. This is not a criticism, as it describes the vast majority of people, but to devote a whole essay to shopping for a shirt in Italy or describing a few items burglarized from your apartment can tax the reader's patience. There is one theme that runs throughout the book, and that is the effect that a recently ended love affair has had on him. He devotes one chapter describing this in poignant detail and often refers to it in other chapters. Whether you empathize with Hyman's nostalgic romanticism or impatiently wish he would just move on will depend on your own nature (I fluctuated in this regard). Peter Hyman is an intelligent writer and he has some funny and valuable insights, and the book has a breezy, engaging style. I'd recommend it to anyone fascinated with contemporary city life.

Rating:
Summary: Good, quick read
Review: The Reluctant Metrosexual is one of those books that you can polish off in a reading or two. It has its funny sections and the yawn sections.

If you're looking for something off the beaten path and occasionally funny, then read this book. This book is more about slackerdom in a big, urban city than metrosexuals. However, the section about his brazilian bikini wax was hilarious.

Rating:
Summary: Not Worth Your Time
Review: When I bought this book, I was hoping for clever, funny, insightful essays on modern urban life. Instead, the book contains a series of essays trying to be clever, funny and insightful and not succeeding. I am actually perplexed that these weak essays which were probably rejected by GQ, the New Yorker, the NY Times Magazine and probably even by Los Angeles and Gear were ever published in book form.

The essays cover various aspects of the author's city life. The lack of insight and humor would be ok if his life was interesting on its own but it is not. It is a life shared by or familiar to most urban Americans. Hyman's book is like an unsuccessful version of the "recognition humor" practiced by Jerry Seinfeld. (You can imagine Hyman in a club saying "How about that internet dating," getting a few chuckles, and then silence as the follow up observations fall flat).

It is possible that the book could prove of some anthropological interest to some rural or outer suburban readers who are not familiar with city dwellers and for that one star.