Gerti’s Review of "My Horizontal Life" by Chelsea Handler
“My
Horitzontal Life” is a book you can read and feel guilty about in
the morning. Was it funny? Yes, occasionally Chelsea Handler’s
collection of stories about her one-night stands was funny. But I’d
have to say my enjoyment at her occasionally humorous turns of phrase
was mitigated at my being appalled at her lack of a moral center. I
am a middle-aged woman, and perhaps that is why I should not have
been reading a book called “My Horizontal Life” at all. I just
wanted to know who Chelsea Handler was since I’d never watched her
comedy show, and the title was just ambiguous enough to lure me into
buying the book.
Well,
now I feel I know all too well who she is. But the problem with the
book is that I don’t care. I really don’t want to know whether
someone Chelsea went to bed with had large or small pudenda. I don’t
really want to know whether she is turned on by midgets or black men.
It’s the reason I don’t go into bars and get into conversations
with boozy whores, because I don’t care what they’re doing with
their nights, either. This book falls into the category of “too
much information”, and like comic Ron White’s written account of
how often he takes drugs and has oral sex, sometimes the amount I’m
disgusted by a person’s behavior outweighs my enjoyment of how
cleverly they can express themselves.
I
would recommend this book only for people whose comical leanings are
highly voyeuristic. Not suitable for young teens, or for anyone,
really. I think I’ve finally found a book that legally qualifies to
be called obscene, as this is smut lit with no redeeming social
value.
