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Drive Thru America

Drive Thru America

List Price: $12.95
Your Price: $9.71
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Relax
Review: ... This is NOT a good guidebook, it is meant to share a fewlaughs, and no doubt he uses many stereotypes along the way. I laughedmy tushie off during most of the book. If you like to laugh, READ THISBOOK!...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: There is more to America than this
Review: A poor book this. The author and friend bum their way across America doing little but getting drunk and watching TV. It has little to offer and it is often difficult to tell fact from fiction. About a quarter of the way through the author is asked 'Will you be making any grand pronouncements or incisive observations about the country?', to which he replys 'I seriously doubt it, I'm too weak, lazy and stupid'. I thought 'well, Mr Condon, if you can't be bothered, neither can I' and put the book down. Verdict: A waste of time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I laughed out loud
Review: and you will too, if you've ever been to America! I've travelled to a lot of the places Sean & David did, and he brought it right back with his bang on one-liners. This book is a must for anyone homesick for American culture!

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: Wacky Road Trip Extravaganza!
Review: Australia is still reeling from Sean & David's Long Drive; now Sean Condon lets loose in his spiritual home - the USA, land of Cheez Wiz, Twinkies, Seinfeld, Beck, the Gideons, the National Enquirer, the Breakfast Sandwich, and much, much more.

Putting the past behind him, Sean's forgiving friend David comes along for the ride as they travel by Greyhound, Chrysler Neon and Alaska Air from Montreal to New York City, New Orleans to Santa Fe and LA to SF, stopping at a bewildering array of Motel-o-Ramas along the way. The result is a hilarious road-portrait of the USA.

Art, life and polyester collide as Sean puts America's countless clichés and myths to the test: is New York really just a great big apple, is LA a great big freeway, does anyone wear flowers in their hair these days in San Francisco, can you still get your kicks on Route 66? And as he falls prey once again to white line fever, the overeating, hangovers, headaches, swearing and boredom that inevitably accompany Sean on his travels are described in excruciating detail.

Drive Thru America takes you on a hair-raising, stomach-churning, nail-biting trip through an overheated imagination. It's the road book that makes you really glad you stayed home.



Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sean feels so good
Review: Condon has done it again!!! Americans (much like every other countries people), are just plain idiotic...and Bravo for Mr Condon for pointing that out!!! You travel YOUR way, you meet who YOU intend to meet, and due to your ability to make interesting word structures...we are all the better for it. Keep it up and keep 'em coming...and maybe someday you can come back to the States and meet some of your fans...we're the one's with that look of disbelief on our faces (you know the one!) P.S. Dear World, If you havent read this book!!! You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I Just Knew the First Book Wasn't a Fluke!!!
Review: Condon has done it again!!! Americans (much like every other countries people), are just plain idiotic...and Bravo for Mr Condon for pointing that out!!! You travel YOUR way, you meet who YOU intend to meet, and due to your ability to make interesting word structures...we are all the better for it. Keep it up and keep 'em coming...and maybe someday you can come back to the States and meet some of your fans...we're the one's with that look of disbelief on our faces (you know the one!) P.S. Dear World, If you havent read this book!!! You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Only us Australians can be that sarcastic.
Review: Great read Sean, I feel sorry for David though,America deserves a decent sarcastic view as only Australians can do, it was so much like my recent trip thru America that I thought I was in the back seat with you guys.

Great read, Buy it now. What's next Sean, I think Jolly Old England needs a taste of you two.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Interesting more than entertaining or informative
Review: I came to this book having just completed Bill Bryson's "A Walk In The Woods" so I was disappointed that this book was so disjointed and kind of aimless.

Condon seems to be a talented writer but appears to write this book as a series of marketing sound bytes rather than as a smooth narrative. This left some good observations un-explored in order to appear hip.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A pack of lies
Review: I hated this book. THe basic premise of two crayzee guys bumming round the USA is a good one but the guy just isn't funny. You get the feeling that about 90% of the book is fictional and I began to wonder if they even actually went to America. A shameful book.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Cliché Thru America
Review: I loved Condon's third book (My 'Dam Life), so it seemed natural to pick up a copy of his account of a US cross-country road trip to read while I embarked on the same trip in reverse. Unfortunately, this earlier effort from Condon t is much more labored and stale than his account of three years living in Amsterdam. After quitting his advertising job, he and an artist friend fly from their native Australia to Canada and cross from Montreal into the US to embark on that most mythic of journeys: the cross-country road trip. Passing through places like NYC, DC, Virginia, Nashville, Mississippi, New Orleans, Texas, Santa Fe, Vegas, LA, SF, and finally flying up to Seattle, they attempt to imbibe a campy version of the American experience. The observations on America are only very occasionally insightful-most of the time Condon is too busy reworking cliché into punch line to do any real observing. The reason My 'Dam Life was so good is that Condon's scattershot one-liners are mixed into a real narrative about trying to make a new life in a foreign city. Here there is simply a choppy travel journal with joke after joke, many of which aren't that funny. There are so many aspects of America that deserve sending up, it's a shame Condon doesn't reach beyond the obvious targets. Which is not to say there aren't some really funny moments or episodes, just that they are few and far between. It also doesn't help that he draws no distinction between events that really happened on his trip, and events that he makes up partially or entirely. For the true American road experience, rent Monte Hellman's classic film Two Lane Blacktop.


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