Book Review: "I Suck at Girls" by Justin Halpern

Building on the success of his Twitter feed, best-selling book, and short-lived television series, Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern is back to reflect on his lack of success with women, which he can trace back to an early age. When he takes his father out to lunch to confide that he is planning to propose to his girlfriend of four years, Justin's father replies (as only he can), "You've been dating her for four years. It ain't like you found a parallel f--king universe."

Eventually, his father recommends that Justin take a day before proposing to reflect on his life, his relationships with women, and his future, to ensure he is making the right decision. Which leads him to reminisce a life lived both pursuing the attention of the opposite sex and fleeing it, from traumatizing a female classmate he liked by drawing her an inappropriate picture to stealing pornographic pictures from a cave where homeless people lived and burying them in his backyard, from being the last of his friends to lose his virginity to acknowledging the risks associated with actually committing yourself to a relationship. And of course, many of these vignettes are punctuated with advice or commentary by his always-to-the-point father.

The adventures of the adolescent male approaching adulthood have been seen so many times before, in books, movies, and television shows. Parts of this book made me absolutely laugh out loud, but I realized that when Justin's father wasn't in the story, it felt much more like just another coming-of-age tale. And the interesting thing is that although I didn't read Sh*t My Dad Says, having seen commercials for the television show, I couldn't help but picture William Shatner every time Justin's father spoke, which almost made the story more amusing. Halpern writes in a very humorous and self-deprecating style, and this is definitely a fun and very quick read.