Book Review: Is It Just Me?: Or Is It Nuts Out There?
by Whoopi Goldberg
Publication Date: Oct 05, 2010
List Price: $22.99
Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
Classification: Nonfiction
ISBN13: 9781401323844
Imprint: Hyperion
Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Parent Company: Lagardère Group
Read a Description of Is It Just Me?: Or Is It Nuts Out There?
Book Reviewed by Kam Williams
"Thoughtlessness is the new manners, and I’ve got to say I don’t like it… Somehow, so many little pieces of courtesy have gone by the wayside. People in your face, in your business, not caring if they are being disrespectfully loud…
So over the last year there were days when I remembered to write things down
that struck me. Many are written here. They cover the map of my mind, unleashed
on you the way they appear in my head.
Little things, the way I can comment on them in a book but not on TV. In no
particular order—oh, and I don’t necessarily have any answers guaranteed to work
for anyone.
— Excerpted from The Foreword (pgs. xiii-xiv)
All over the country nowadays, we’re witnessing a frightening decline in
civility, whether it’s teens being bullied to the point of suicide, tourists
being subjected to searches at airports that look more like foreplay than pat
downs, or simply people talking loudly on cell phones in places where it’s rude
or illegal to do so. In the political realm, we’ve heard mudslinging candidates
refer to opponents as a "witch," "whore" or "degenerate idiot," a Republican can
interrupt the President’s State of the Union speech to call him a liar, and even
a fellow Democrat tell Obama to "shove it."
Weighing-in on this disturbing trend is comedienne Whoopi Goldberg, herself no
stranger to such controversy. You may remember how she and fellow co-host Joy
Behar recently became so exasperated by what they considered to be anti-Muslim
remarks by guest Bill O’Reilly that they stormed off the set of their own show,
The View.
Now Whoopi has written Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There?, a book chock
full of observational humor about the demise of manners in America. In a flip
stream of consciousness, she basically bemoans the quality of discourse’s being
stuck in the toilet. In fact, the tome’s cover even features a tasteless photo
of the author sitting on the john in a public bathroom stall.
Among the hundred or so behaviors getting under Ms. Goldberg’s skin are fans who
act like jackasses at sporting events, drivers with road rage, noisy neighbors,
cowardly bloggers and cheap perfume. You can easily imagine her gravely voice as
you read along, given her conversational tone peppered with colorful slang and
salty expletives.
Nothing particularly deep or memorable here, just the literary equivalent of an
entertaining standup act by a seasoned comic venting via an emotional dump.