Watch Your Mouth: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Very very funny but too clever by half...
Review: I bought this book before discovering Lemony Snickett but didn't get round to reading it until after I had read the first few volumes of the Series Of Unfortunate Events. Consequently I was prepared for his skewed worldview before embarking upon Watch Your Mouth.

The novel is very funny indeed with some hilarious and filthy puns that had me laughing out loud. The basic premise of discovering your girlfriend's family is incestuous is sick but is also a riot of comedy and innuendo.

My main criticism is that Handler clouds this amusing premise and great comedy in too much extra baggage. Pitching the first half of the book as an opera just wasn't needed and I think the book would have been better written as a straight comedy, it is just a bit too clever for its own good.

The book descends into ridiculous horror which I found myself enjoying and getting annoyed by in equal measure which perhaps sums up my feeling for the book as a whole.

I he can produce an adult work as delightfully irreverant as his Lemony Snickett stories for children then it would be a must read. Watch Your Mouth is not that essential.

Rating:
Summary: Very very funny but too clever by half...
Review: I bought this book before discovering Lemony Snickett but didn't get round to reading it until after I had read the first few volumes of the Series Of Unfortunate Events. Consequently I was prepared for his skewed worldview before embarking upon Watch Your Mouth.

The novel is very funny indeed with some hilarious and filthy puns that had me laughing out loud. The basic premise of discovering your girlfriend's family is incestuous is sick but is also a riot of comedy and innuendo.

My main criticism is that Handler clouds this amusing premise and great comedy in too much extra baggage. Pitching the first half of the book as an opera just wasn't needed and I think the book would have been better written as a straight comedy, it is just a bit too clever for its own good.

The book descends into ridiculous horror which I found myself enjoying and getting annoyed by in equal measure which perhaps sums up my feeling for the book as a whole.

I he can produce an adult work as delightfully irreverant as his Lemony Snickett stories for children then it would be a must read. Watch Your Mouth is not that essential.

Rating:
Summary: It's so awesome, it's awful!
Review: I didn't even finish this book, I got so irritated. The metaphor of this guy's life being like a play is so overused, it's offensive. As is his account after account of his sex life with his girlfriend. The main character of this book is an emotionally retarded college-aged man. I felt nothing but disgust for him and the description of his situation. I didn't even finish the book.

So why do I recommend it wholeheartedly? Because it was as if the book was written by an emotionally retarded college-aged male. Which would mean absolutely nothing if I hadn't read his first book, 'The Basic Eight' first...in which he writes about an intelligent and witty female in her last year of high school. And it is though the book is written by an intelligent eighteen year old girl.

The only thing I regret about reading this book is that I didn't finish it. But this is the genius of Handler's writing. Whoever he is writing about, he does so completely...the fact that it was a book billed as and "incest comedy" put me off before I even picked it up...along with the fact that as soon as I picked it up I was having this guy's conquests described sooo often...Handler's the kind of writer that messes with your head before you even pick up his book...and does so even more once it's open.

I love that.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific, and terrifically underrated
Review: I'm a huge fan of Handler's other books, but it seems like he is simply trying to prove to the world that he isn't a children's author (and lord knows WHY anyone ever thought BASIC EIGHT was for children). I couldn't get past all the VERY GRAPHIC sex.

Rating:
Summary: You've never read a novel quite like this
Review: In case you haven't heard, Daniel Handler is the mastermind behind Lemony Snicket, author of the unlucky adventures of the three Baudelaire orphans. His success as Snicket seemed to have happened overnight, but he's been writing for a while it seems, with two adult novels (this one and The Basic Eight to his credit, both written before the Snicket books, I believe). In combination, it is quite clear that Handler is well on his way to becoming the 21st century Roald Dahl, who also wrote books for both adults and children that combined both whimsy and perversion.

And if you want perversion, you can't do much better than a comic novel about incest, which is what this book is. The structure of the book begins as an opera (it ties in to some community opera done by one of the characters), then mutates in Act III to be based on a 12-step program. Like Dahl in My Uncle Oswald, Handler isn't afraid of writing about sex, either. I was reading this on the airplane and I kept holding the book open at 90 degrees rather than the normal 180 just in case the fellow sitting next to me travelling with his young child might glance over and then alert the attendent to the pervert on the plane.

I'm not sure I liked this book, but I have to admit it was audacious, quite funny, and always unusual. The ending was disappointing as Handler went in for the more serious ending rather than really ending off as absurd as he began. All in all, this is an adult series of unfortunate events that is recommended for mature minds only.

Rating:
Summary: Watch Your Mouth
Review: The author of this book tries too hard to be clever here. If you want a better book that's smart and provocative, go read Lolita.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This was a very good book; I had already read all of the Lemony Snicket books and The Basic Eight prior to reading this, and I was not let down with Handler's amazing view on the world and his bravery to write about topics that some critics would call "sensitive" topics.
It is admirable of Handler that he can even muster the bravery to write such a graphic novel, but it is an amazing mix between Jewish Folklore, the opera, and a messed up person's life. It leaves you questioning the truth until the very end, and even after that.

Rating:
Summary: More than just an incest opera comedy?
Review: What Handler does here that I thoroughly enjoy is use a format to draw you in and then pokes direct fun at the entire format. For me (OPINION! OPINION! for those who don't understand such things and like to get offended easily), the book didn't overdo it with format. Had it left the format, taken it seriously, and moved through the entirety of the novel, it would have simply been overkill. By simply poking fun at the types of things that take place in an opera or the novel that has nowhere else to go plot-wise or in a 12 step program, the novel pulls a lot of new humor out of a story that never completely takes itself seriously anyway. Handler does not choose to disguise the self-awareness of the format (unlike many other authors). He doesn't cater to a possible movie adaptation by setting up a cinematic third person narrative. He makes the reader aware that this novel could not exist in any other form. Even though I love movies (and own DVD's galore based upon favorite books of mine), isn't that why the novel is there in the first place? To be loved as a novel, not as a companion to a film or a precursor to future projects. It is the novel, in all its operatic, rehabilitative glory. It's one thing that makes Handler's work so essential. Take a look at the first page of the Unfortunate Events books (by Handler as Lemony Snicket, although everyone else here has mentioned the same fact) and you'll see the same self-consciousness of the novel. To me, it seems so refreshing and so vital.

Rating:
Summary: It's very sick, but I loved it for its bravery to be sick
Review: When I discovered that Lemony Snicket was Daniel Handler I found this
book here. I saw the first few reviews and hoped this book was as unusual as it truly was. I was tired of reading what my book group read (sad women finding themselves and living happily ever after) - I wanted to be shocked and challenged and this book fit the bill! I loved it for being different, taking chances to write in a style of being an opera, to incorporate tough subjects for the pop culture (old Jewish mysiticim and incest). I know I need to read this book a second time to understand all the humor but I loved it for being "OUT" there where most readers won't go. Some parts reminded me of Bee Season and Feast of Love.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome relief to books that take themselves too seriously.
Review: While I'll have to wait until I know more about Handler's humanitarian side before I commit myself to believing Salon's assessment of him as the new 'Vonnegut' I can certainly say he holds up the humor banner high enough. This book is full of really romping fun and over-the-top sexual humor that is far from sophmoric. Prudes will be offended so if you can't handle it then I suggest you stay far away but if you can laugh then definitely give this gem a read. I'm a huge fan of the Snicket series as well as his other novel "Basic Eight" and I found Watch Your Mouth to be far funnier than his other stuff.

I can understand folks who think that the humor might overshadow some of the other things however I think he lived up to his (I'm making a big assumption here) intentions well. Even looking at the photograph of the author you can see above all that he wanted the reader to laugh, and laugh you will. The book reads like a Groucho Marx movie without pretentions. It does however assume some measure of intelligence on the reader's part and you'd better be ready for some pretty darned subtle (and some not so subtle) humor.

Yeah, okay, so I'm repeating myself here. Basically we have the plot you've had described to you, the humor you've read about in some of these reviews, and the fact that I really enjoyed the heck out of this book. I anxiously await the next Handler or Snicket book.

Cheers