Best State Ever by Dave Barry
A brilliantly funny exploration of the Sunshine State from the man who knows it best: Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Dave Barry.
We never know what will happen next in Florida. We know only that, any minute now, something will. Every few months, Dave Barry gets a call from some media person wanting to know, “What the hell is wrong with Florida?” Somehow, the state’s acquired an image as a subtropical festival of stupid, and as a loyal Floridian, Dave begs to differ. Sure, there was the 2000 election. And people seem to take their pants off for no good reason. And it has flying insects the size of LeBron James. But it is a great state, and Dave is going to tell you why.
Join him as he celebrates Florida from Key West at the bottom to whatever it is that’s at the top, from the Sunshine State’s earliest history to the fun-fair of weirdness and gunfire (“Our motto: ‘Come back! We weren’t firing at you!'”) that it is today. It’s the most hilarious book yet from “the funniest damn writer in the whole country” (Carl Hiaasen, and he should know). By the end, you’ll have to admit that whatever else you might think about Florida – you can never say it’s boring.
Sometimes a book crosses my path and I’m like “Hmmm. This seems like it could possibly have potential. And this also equally seems like it could possibly be a disaster. Maybe it will be fantastic fun to see which one it will be!”
If I’m feeling kinda daring, I’ll toss the dice in this literary roulette, start reading the book and cross my fingers it works out to my advantage.
This was one of those books.
Sigh…
Yall.
It was NOT my lucky day.
I don’t even know how or why this came into my library universe…but whatever kind of algorithm that did this to me, I am NOT appreciative and not in agreement with this bot’s recommendations. 😑
Why DID I decide to read this, you may be asking?
Well…I’m kinda asking myself the same thing 🤣
As a still fairly new Floridian (we only moved here a year ago) who has quite a few strong grievances with this state and the way things are run, I thought maybe this funny little book would help point out some things to love about our new home state because sometimes I struggle to find them.
(besides the weather…and Disney…and the beach…because THOSE things I do IMMENSELY enjoy here)
Didn’t exactly pan out that way, yall.
First of all, the narrator’s voice was NOT GOOD.
His voice sounded robotic AF… AND it had a game show/infomercial/sports announcer vibe—-he would be PERFECTION for many “Let’s get ready to rummmmbbbblllleeeeeeee!” moments.
OMGGGG yall…. that man’s voice GOT ON MY DAMN NERVES about 5 minutes in.🤬
It did not help that the content he was reading was also NOT GREAT.
I mean…a couple things the author talks about were a *teensy bit* funny– like the weird and stupid things Florida people get arrested for and his interviews with the Floridian brothers who research Skunk Ape sightings (kinda like a Florida version of BigFoot….yes this is a REAL phenomenon, yall. Google that mess.🤦♀️ )
Some things he talks about though were just NOT OKAY with me.
Like his little racist comment making fun of all the bodies of water in the state with Native American names.😠
NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.
And also when he went on for a couple paragraphs about how all the women in South Florida were “smokin’ hot”—even at the grocery store—made me throw up in my mouth a bit.🤮
And YUCK YUCK YUCK to the chapter where he went to the “Lock and Load”–a machine gun firing range “entertainment” experience.
NO THANK YOU to all that BS. 😑
Instead of witty and entertaining satire, I found the majority of this book to be stupid, rude and not funny commentary.
The only positive thing it did give me was a few interesting places in this state I want to check out, like the Weeki Wachee mermaid show, Gatorland, and all the crazy bars in Key West.
But I probably could have discovered that thru plenty other resources.
BLECH.
This book sucked.
For those of you who already have negative feelings and thoughts about Florida, you may be sitting there like “DUH. Of course it sucked. How can a book about THAT state be good?”
But listen….
While I DO have plenty to complain about here, I have to admit that the year round sunshine, living less than 20 minutes from the beach, fresh seafood and being only an hour from DISNEY is pretty damn great.
I’ll keep searching for more reasons as we continue our years here….if climate change doesn’t sweep us all into the Atlantic at some point.
This book was unhelpful and unfunny to me….I do NOT agree with the official summary up there.
I’m glad I’m done with it.
Time to move on to better things ✌️