[issybird]

I went into this expecting to like it or at least to be entertained by it and I suppose to an extent I was, but it should have been better.

I don't put a lot of weight into Goodreads ratings, but it's striking that the overall rating is just a hair under four stars, whereas the mean rating of my six Goodreads friends who are members here is a paltry 2.5 stars. In part that's because Goodreads ratings aren't very granular and implied ratings of 2.5 and 3.5 tend to round down. But even giving it every benefit of the doubt, that's still significantly lower. On the other hand, the one rating among my friends who is not a member here is five stars.

So, wandering into the purely speculative, I wonder if it's because as a group we're not really part of the Fry fandom and so missed that boost, or if, conversely, it's because we expected more from this just because of Fry's celebrity and wit and were disappointed. Would we have liked this more if written by a Steven Burns? But then, would a Steven Burns have been subject to more rigorous editing to the benefit of the book? Or would it not have been published at all if written by a Steven Burns?

If I can split hairs, I didn't think this was well done, but I didn't dislike it, in that it held my interest and I wasn't tempted to abandon it. A lot of the wordplay was clever and fun; I started laughing early on at the recaffeinated coffee. If Fry could have held onto the fun, it would have been a lot more enjoyable - but there's a fatal disconnect between Hitler and high hilarity. Mel Brooks pulled it off, but I can't think of another example.