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The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure Kindle Edition
The Stench of Honolulu
Are you a fan of books in which famous tourist destinations are repurposed as unlivable hellholes for no particular reason? Read on!
Jack Handey's exotic tale is full of laugh-out-loud twists and unforgettable characters whose names escape me right now. A reliably unreliable narrator and his friend, who is some other guy, need to get out of town. They have a taste for adventure, so they pay a visit to a relic of bygone days-a travel agent-and discover an old treasure map. She might have been a witch, by the way. Our heroes soon embark on a quest for the Golden Monkey, which takes them into the mysterious and stinky foreign land of Honolulu. There, they meet untold dangers, confront strange natives, kill and eat Turtle People, kill some other things and people, eat another thing, and discover the ruins of ancient civilizations.
As our narrator says, "The ruins were impressive. But like so many civilizations, they forgot the rule that might have saved them: Don't let vines grow all over you."
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherGrand Central Publishing
- Publication dateJuly 16, 2013
- File size2840 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Not surprisingly, Emmy winner Handey, famed for his New Yorker humor and offbeat philosophizing in his 'Deep Thoughts' series, has turned out a first novel that goes for the funny bone."
-- "Library Journal""A clever, absurd, and fantastical adventure that could only have sprung from the hilarious-slash-lunatic mind of Jack Handey."
-- "Jimmy Fallon, New York Times bestselling author ""I recently humiliated myself in the prestigious Pump Room restaurant by laughing out loud, to the point of tears, while reading The Stench of Honolulu. Jack Handey is the funniest writer in America. And his funny is a very particular, sublime, kind of funny--it builds and builds and is related to his supreme control of language. It is witty, minimal, subversive, and also strangely sweet. Read this book, and you will feel better, period."
-- "George Saunders, New York Times bestselling author""This book is a joy. I laughed out loud on every page. Jack Handey is hilarious, brilliant, and original--a law unto himself."
-- "Ian Frazier, New York Times bestselling author"About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B00A6JJ6C8
- Publisher : Grand Central Publishing (July 16, 2013)
- Publication date : July 16, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 2840 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 233 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : B01L9AYJ8I
- Best Sellers Rank: #820,654 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #692 in Humorous American Literature
- #1,274 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #4,357 in General Humorous Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
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Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the writing style easy and flowing. The book enhances their outlook on life and leads to a greater understanding of others. However, some readers feel the book is too short with short sentences and lacks interest. Opinions vary on the humor, value for money, and plot. Some find it funny and entertaining, while others say it's faintly amusing with only one funny joke.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the writing style easy to read and fun. They describe the book as a quick, light read with funny lines and setups. Readers appreciate the clever writing and find it worth the price for the quality of the writing and laughs.
"...It looks like it would be a light read, with short chapters and big fonts, but it's amazingly dense and probably works better if you don't try to..." Read more
"...Author Jack Handey provides a tongue-in-cheek take on travel and leisure writing, and with that sentiment, read for merely sheer pleasure with the..." Read more
"...But there are at least 2 problems that make it a little tedious... 1. The plot line never really coalesces into anything interesting...." Read more
"Overall, I really enjoyed this book - it's a quick read, full of campy, silly, dry humor that had me laughing out loud throughout the book!..." Read more
Customers find the book inspiring and uplifting. They say it enhances their outlook on life and leads to a better understanding of others. The tale is told from the perspective of someone they don't like, making it an enjoyable read with humorous moments.
"...This book is an extension of those thoughts and has so many laugh out loud moments...." Read more
"This tale is told from the perspective of someone you really don't like about a place that has a seedy side most tourists don't see...." Read more
"...Really a great inspirational book." Read more
"Great beach book, no dictionary required! . Enhanced my outlook on life, and lead to a greater understanding of my fellow man." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the humor in the book. Some find it funny with sarcastic writing and laugh-out-loud moments. Others say it's faintly amusing, with only a few gag lines. They feel the book promised a lot of laughs per page but didn't deliver.
"...and the chapters are short. It is just the book I needed for light reading." Read more
"...It's funny. It's just not as funny as I'd wanted it to be. That's my fault, raising my expectations to Deep Thoughts level...." Read more
"...It's a very pure form of absurdity that is sure to make a small percentage of people appreciate Handy's true genius, and completely alienate the..." Read more
"...The ENTIRE book has one funny joke about alligators having a sense of humor, that's it folks...." Read more
Customers have different views on the plot. Some find it quirky, interesting, and inventive with enough twists to keep them interested. Others find the story absurd and thin, with a loose narrative thread and predictable humor.
"The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure is one of those unique books that must be taken with a grain of salt...." Read more
"...There's a very loose plot line here, involving an adventure to find a golden monkey on the lost tropical island of Hawaii, but don't assume anything..." Read more
"Overall, I really enjoyed this book - it's a quick read, full of campy, silly, dry humor that had me laughing out loud throughout the book!..." Read more
"...In true Jack Handey fashion, the plot makes little sense yet somehow flows well...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's value for money. Some find it worthwhile and hilarious, saying it's a rich success. Others feel it's disappointing, unfunny, and not worth the few sheets of paper it's printed on.
"...the good reviews his friends must have written, DON'T buy this poor excuse of a book." Read more
"...There. If you're still here, buy the book. It's good stuff...." Read more
"Downside first: Not much page for your buck...." Read more
"...Jack Handey's humor is not for everyone. It's strange and incredible and witty and, one might argue, wonderful...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book length. Some find it light and humorous, with short chapters and paragraphs. Others find the first 20 pages ridiculous and unappealing. They describe the writing as poorly written and trite, with an unappealing storyline.
"...Thus, book jerky." Read more
"...The print is rather large (yay!), and the chapters are short. It is just the book I needed for light reading." Read more
"...As an adult, I found it too silly to finish until I started reading it out loud with a 10-year-old..." Read more
"This is pretty much a book-length Deep Thought. If that appeals to you, then get this book, you will not regret it and will laugh at every page...." Read more
Customers find the book's length too short. They mention it has short chapters and sentences with limited vocabulary. The page count is misleading, as there are about 80 chapters.
"...As it stands now, all I have for my nineteen bucks is 224 pages of low grade toilet paper...." Read more
"Downside first: Not much page for your buck. The page count is somewhat misleading, as there are about 80 chapters and so plenty of opportunities..." Read more
"...My only complaint is that it's not longer...." Read more
"...Not worth the money because it is so short, but it is long enough for what it is." Read more
Customers find the book boring and lacking interest. They mention the writing style is poor and the book feels unfinished.
"...Lost interest and didn't finish the book" Read more
"The comedic style is fine at the beginning but gets boring after a while. Could not read more than half." Read more
"Not a good read. Lousy writing style and lost my interest quickly." Read more
"LOVE JACK HANDEY - so disappointed by what felt like a lazy and half-assed book..." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2013Yes, Jack Handy is a person. Non-comic writer nerds remember "Deep Thoughts" on SNL, but those in the know remember him as the creator of Toonces the driving cat and many other weird SNL sketches that usually went over people's heads.
This book is a lot like if you took a bunch of Deep Thoughts one-liners and smashed them together in a novel. It's a very pure form of absurdity that is sure to make a small percentage of people appreciate Handy's true genius, and completely alienate the other 90-some percent of people that try to read it. Not every joke hits, but there are some good ones in there. It looks like it would be a light read, with short chapters and big fonts, but it's amazingly dense and probably works better if you don't try to read the whole thing in one shot.
There's a very loose plot line here, involving an adventure to find a golden monkey on the lost tropical island of Hawaii, but don't assume anything you know about Honolulu translates here. Handy creates this bizarro version of the island filled with running gags that make the place sound like some awful version of the jungles of Apocalypse Now instead of the land of Don Ho. If you're the kind of person that loves high-concept, plotted fiction with likable characters and building and resolving tension so perfectly timed you could find the page number where item #14 in the Blake Snyder plot outline, you will not like this book. But if Deep Thoughts was more than just a desktop calendar series for you and you can appreciate his bizarre sense of humor, this book is genius.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2013Step One: Realize that this book was written by Jack Handey, the man responsible for the hilarious series of Deep Thoughts that were hits on both SNL as well as bookstores. The man also wrote some of SNL's best sketches (some of which can be found in his other book, a collection of essays called What I'd Say to the Martians). If you know about the Deep Thoughts and dislike them, then what the heck are you doing on this page? You go now.
Step Two: Still with me? Good. Here's the plot. It follows an unnamed narrator (basically the speaker of all of the Deep Thoughts: a guy with a best friend named Don, a wife named Marta, and a penchant for funny cowboy dances) as he travels to Hawaii(i) to find a Golden Monkey. Hawaii(i), in the novel, is a fetid, disgusting place filled with vicious pirates and natives and an absurdly helpful Tourism Board. The story is full of slapstick, puns, violence, and incredibly silly jokes. If you like your humor to have brows of the highest variety, then you go now.
Step Three: Have you ever read any of John Swartzwelder's books? He's the guy that has, so far, written the largest number (and many would argue, the most consistently funny) Simpsons episodes. He has a series of books that are -- in tone, pacing, prose, and style -- nearly identical to this book. If you dislike the Simpsons, or if you've read Swartzwelder's books and dislike them, or if you are just annoyed by how often I've written the name "Swartzwelder" and are beginning to get headachy, then you go now.
Step Four: If you are expecting this book to deliver the punchy humor of Deep Thoughts on every page, go ahead and lower that expectation a bit. Handey himself commented in a recent interview that his writing style is about brevity, and that even one deep thought would take him hours to perfect, and would come at the end of a whole lotta failures. Trying to draw that magic out for even the length of this pretty short book is asking a lot more than you should. That being said: I laughed out loud quite a bit when reading this book. I also rolled my eyes a lot, and there were long stretches where I found my enthusiasm for the book dipping down. It's funny. It's just not as funny as I'd wanted it to be. That's my fault, raising my expectations to Deep Thoughts level. I was still entertained and do not regret my purchase, but I also can't honestly say it's as good a book as I think Handey actually has in him to do. End result: if you're not the kind of person who knows how to lower their expectations a few notches, then you must have a spectacular string of failed relationships in your life, and you go now.
There. If you're still here, buy the book. It's good stuff. It's not comedy gold, but if it were, it would probably be more expensive, and you wouldn't buy it anyway.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2024This book makes me laugh. I love Hawaii and Honolulu, so I know that this book is not all factual and that some of the names are corrupted for the sake of hilarity. The print is rather large (yay!), and the chapters are short. It is just the book I needed for light reading.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2015The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure is one of those unique books that must be taken with a grain of salt. Humorist and Author Jack Handey provides a tongue-in-cheek take on travel and leisure writing, and with that sentiment, read for merely sheer pleasure with the least seriousness. This is Handey’s first novel, and having watched the short snippets of “Deep Thoughts” read by SNL cast member Phil Hartman, Handey’s writings are quite funny in their somewhat sarcastic way. But as one reads the book, each chapter comprise of short snippets that resonate of novelty and subtle stereotypes that any general reader may identify with within the lines of popular culture. The image on the cover of the book speaks for itself of the hula girl dashboard and to follow that, thoughts of the Tiki Bar of cocktails with miniature parasols.
Basically, the book is a stream of comments and conversations between main character Don and his friend Mr. Slurps decide to take a free trip to Hawaii. And their entire experience are their observations of two friends on a trip that encounter a slew of unusual but interesting observations that any person would talk about in a place that they seldom or never have visited before; jokes and banter of the utmost unpredictability and uncensored. From bizarre encounters in an exotic land, a bit of romance and action and adventure, of over 50 different scenes; and if one over thinks of what each compare to, possibly close to a “Fantasy Island” episode without Mr. Roarke but with a heavy dose of humor. The approach that Handey writes reminds this reader of stories that may have appeared in MAD books or magazine articles or even National Lampoon, an amorous amount of humor that after reading the book, one will wonder where did the time go.
The Stench may be the perfect book to take on a road trip or a simply to pass the time away for as little than a day.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2024One of the funniest easiest reads, but you have to have the authors sense of humor… I personally love it.
Top reviews from other countries
- Bryan LotockiReviewed in Canada on October 10, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Jack is Funnier Than You
Jack Handy is very funny. He's funnier than you are. He's funnier than most. This book proves it.
- Francisco MineraReviewed in Mexico on August 28, 2021
1.0 out of 5 stars fool
The humor is pretty basic
- JRVP_sweReviewed in Sweden on May 19, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Funny
Thank you Anthony Jeselnik for pointing me to this.
- Ares 23Reviewed in Germany on May 7, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious! Beyond words.
I read a lot of comedy. I mean a lot, lot, lot. And this is without exaggeration, the funniest book ever written. It's a Story made of punchline upon punchline and I lmaorotf on every single page. Literally.
So if you like to laugh, buy it... I'm serious. Go!
-
Michel PleimeldingReviewed in France on October 28, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Un beau specimen de l'humour idiot
Vous aimez les histoires ineptes, les personnages creux, les fausses sorties, les mauvais jeux de mots et les mises en abîme à fonctionnement (très) limité, alors vous aimerez The Stench of Honolulu. Jack Handey est le champion d'une forme de minimalisme comique qui flirte avec le foutage de gueule. Humour au troisième degré garanti. Le livre devrait bientôt paraître en français.