Death by Petticoat

Death by Petticoat by Mary Miley Theobald
3/5 stars
Andrew McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2012
126 pages
Non-fiction; American History

Source: Received an e-ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love the idea for this book-it is right up my alley as a history major who specialized in US history. I love collections of truths and myths that break them down in easy-to-read ways and this looked like the perfect quick read for me.

And it was a quick read. Each entry is only about one page and includes a picture to further illustrate the point. The writing was easy to read and due to the shortness, you can very quickly read this book. I think it would be fun to pick it up and read an entry or two at a time. It looks like a nice book to support The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and its missions of preservation and education.

However I ended up being disappointed on a few counts. First the focus is mostly on colonial times (which is forecast by the collaboration with The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation but which I didn't notice). I thought it would cover a longer period of time and be more mixed. But most of the myths come from colonial times with just a few from later days. Second was the myths themselves, most of which I had never even heard of-two separate mentions of room taxes as a for example. I guess these are questions that tourists ask when visiting Colonial Williamsburg, which makes me very worried for our school system if in fact American-educated people are thinking these things are true. My expectations were that I would have at least heard of the myths even if I knew they were false from my more specialized studying.

Overall: Good for some light reading but not recommended for history scholars.

Cat Vs Human

Cat Vs Human by Yasmine Surovec
Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2011
153 pages
Humor; Comic
5/5 stars

Source: Received a free copy for review via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Do you like cats? Well, I am the proud human of an adorable orange tabby who is totally the boss of our house and I am here to say that if you have any love for cats, you'll probably love this book.

First the cats look so cute! The main three are an orange cat (my favorite as he makes me think of my cat), a light gray, and a dark gray cat.  There is also a cartoon version of the author, her husband and their dog as she examines the place of cats and compares that to treatment of humans and dogs.

Some scenes seem to possibly come from the author's real-life while others are just representative of stereotypes (and sometimes of the realities) of being a cat lover.  Most of the comics made me smile and a few made me laugh out loud in recognition.  This was a fast read and I highly recommend it for lovers of cats and adorableness!

Fail Harder

Fail Harder by the failblog.org community
Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2011
182 pages
Non-fiction; Humor
3/5 stars

Source: Received an e-ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love to laugh but I don't spend much time online at sites such as failblog.org. So I thought this would be a funny and quick read with new to me pictures. According to other reviews, these pictures have appeared on the site so if you're a long-time reader of the site who doesn't want to spend the money, this probably isn't for you.

As for me, most of the pictures made me crack a smile although a few were a little hard to see on my computer. I feel like this kind of book is better in person with the glossy colorful pictures and the ability to examine it more closely and in detail.  However none of the pictures made me laugh as much as I wanted to and because these are pictures, I could speed through them; it took me maybe 10 minutes because I was too impatient to savor the pictures.

Overall: Not as funny as I expected but a worthy book to buy if you want to support the failblog.

5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth

by Matthew Inman
Andrew McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2011
152 pages
Humor
4/5 stars

Source: Received a free review copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a hilarious collection of comics touching on a wide range of subjects.  My personal favorites are those teaching grammar points (such as when to use an apostrophe or a semi-colon) and those with cats.  Lately I have really been wanting a cat which is a huge no-no in my dorm but as I'm graduating this year, perhaps I will get a cat later.  I just miss our family's cat so much and some of the points made ring so true!

The only problem was that in digital format, it was hard to read many of the asides as the writing could not be made bigger.  I'm not entirely sure why but I think it makes sense.  Luckily I was already familiar with some of the comics so I could figure out what most of the words were.

Check out theoatmeal.com for more and to order your own copy!