About book Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir Of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood (2013)
I'm a fan of Drew Magary's writing in general, including his previous book (The Postmortal) and his online work. I was really looking forward to this book, but it fell kind of flat for me. There were certainly some funny moments, but without the intensity of his usual rants. And I thought that enclosing the whole thing in an "OMG our son might die" frame story not only deflated some of the humor, but felt manipulative and gimmicky (especially when leaving the reader with the "WILL HE DIE?" cliffhanger at the beginning). I get it, he was balancing the humor with some pathos and showing us that, in parenting, you laugh and you cry. But honestly, that concept is trite to the point of boredom, and most of the appeal of Magary's take on parenthood is that he skips right by the joyful parts that everyone talks about to the minute, frequent, and somehow utterly consuming frustrations of dealing with what are essentially tiny sociopaths. This book lost some of that edge and ended up being mildly-to-fairly entertaining. I was an early reader of Deadspin, picking it up early enough to know Drew Magary from his pseudonym of Big Daddy Drew in the comments section. To be honest, in those days I found him a little tasteless and vulgar, if occasionally hilarious. Once Will Leitch left, I started to tire of the snarkiness and sometimes mean-spirited vibe cultivated by later editors. I stopped reading Deadspin regularly, and eventually altogether. Recently, a friend forwarded me some of Magary's mailbag columns from Deadspin, insisting that they were must-read. Having a preconceived notion of what to expect, I was surprised by how down-to-earth, thoughtful, and yes, hilarious Magary was in the columns, and also by how enlightened a guy he was for someone so entrenched in the bro-culture Deadspin perpetuates (or at least used to perpetuate when I was last a regular reader). I'm now a regular reader of his columns and look forward to them every Tuesday.Magary's book of essays on parenting, "Someone Could Get Hurt" is spot-on. As a parent myself, I couldn't believe how accurately he portrayed the daily trials, tribulations, and terror that is raising children. I found myself constantly highlighting passages,laughing knowingly, and nodding my head in agreement. Magary gets it, and he puts it out there in a plain, unpretentious way that is both hilarious in its telling and poignant in its honesty. There are a lot of moments, small and large that ring true for parents throughout, but the essay that stuck with me the most was his brutal, unflinching look at getting a DUI. He describes a rare night out away from the wife and kids, in the city with his friends at a ball game. He has a bit to drink, and ends up driving a short way home. He gets pulled over, and aces a field sobriety test, but still gets a breathalyzer where he blows just over the legal limit. He describes the hubris that led to the decision and the shame that follows with breathtaking honesty and clarity. It's something that I realized could have just as easily happened to me a dozen times in my life, and it's only sheer good fortune and dumb luck that it hasn't.Many of Magary's essays are like this, speaking to banality and underlying fears of being a 21st century parent and man in an unflinchingly honest way that makes the book a must-read for any father. It was the best book I've read so far this year, and I can't wait until his next book of essays.
Do You like book Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir Of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood (2013)?
A few good chapters a few fillers. Kind of funny. Probably funnier if you don't have kids.
—chlorify
Is this the same book as "Someone could get hurt" with a different title?
—Maro
Entertaining and fun. Captures the joys and fears of fatherhood.
—macias11513
