Published: 2004Pages: 343
Genre: Non-fiction
Short summary: Dave Gorman is a comedian who's tired of his average life. His friend challenges him to find and meet ten "googlewhacks" before he turns 32, and Dave hesitantly accepts. Fuelled by a lust for life and a desperate desire to do anything except what he's supposed to be doing, Dave Gorman travels around the world three times in less than three months and meets the most unlikeliest cast of people on earth.My perspective: First of all - what is googlewhacking? It's an internet word game where the goal is to try and come up with a combination of two words that only yields one hit on Google.com. Those words are called a googlewhack. Now that you're armed with this knowledge, you might understand this review a bit more!
So, Dave Gorman is a real life guy who truly went on this adventure around the globe (he included pictures of his travels in the novel). His goal was to meet ten people who owned the websites that were googlewhacks, all before he turned 32! The twist was that once he found the first googlewhack himself, he had to rely on them to find two other googlewhacks, and so on. Basically, he had to meet a long chain of randomly-connected people. Interesting premise for a novel!
This was a funny, entertaining read. I literally found myself laughing out loud multiple times throughout the story, which is a rare thing for me to do! It also had elements of suspense thrown in, because you weren't entirely sure if he would meet his deadline in time. The book is truly an adventure - you go along with Dave as he visits many destinations, meets new people, and ultimately comes to terms with reality.
At first I wasn't sure if this book would feel repetitive, due to the fact that it's about a continuous chain of people doing the same thing over and over. But I was wrong! Honestly, there wasn't one moment I was bored or felt that the book was dragging. Dave's quirky and funny writing style keeps you interested and amused with what's going on. At times I was forgetting that this is a work of non-fiction purely because of the entertainment factor.
Recommendation: If you're looking for a laugh out loud funny or strangely-amusing book, try this one! It's not an overly short book, but you'll breeze through it in no time.
9 comments:
Great review. I love that you are always bringing fresh books to my attention :)
This sounds like an interesting, fun read. I like that all of the "googlewhacks" were connected to each other in some way.
I still don't get what a googlewhack is, lol!! And how do you figure it out?
I've never heard of this, but it sounds really interesting! Thanks for the review! :)
This book sounds awesome!! I didn't even know such a word existed! I have to read this.
First of all, thanks for explaining about googlewhack! I had no idea.
This sounds like a book I'd enjoy. Since I'd love to travel around the world myself, I could live vicariously through it :P
Thanks for all the comments! I'm glad most of you are interested in reading this book.
Jenny - Aw, don't worry! It's a weird concept to understand. Basically, a "googlewhack" is a two-word search on google.com that only gives you one result when you search for it. They're usually two seemingly random, large words. A googlewhack is hard to find because normally a google search gives you pages and pages of results!
Oh ok... took me another minute, but I got it now. How in the world do you find those??? I guess I need to read the book to find out, hahah!!
Sounds like a really cool idea for a book, and would be an interesting read. I had never heard of it so thanks for the review!
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