A Shore Thing

AUTHOR (and I use the term loosely): Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: I don't even want to try and classify this thing.

As previously noted, I am not one of those people who considers all reality TV evil.  I have, on more than one occasion, watched Jersey Shore, almost always in the form of those marathons MTV runs where the episodes bleed into each other, making it all one long mesmerizing moment.  Jersey Shore is the proverbial train wreck: you don't want to look, you know you shouldn't look, but you just can't look away, even as part of you rants about the absurdity of celebrity and the demise of civilized society.  How can you look away, when all you can think is are you (bleeping) serious right now.

A Shore Thing is the literary embodiment of that train wreck.

I will not speculate on how much of it Polizzi actually wrote herself, except to say that the use of certain language and the emphasis on bodily functions suggests it was more than you might expect.  Whoever co-wrote it with her didn't put their name on the cover, which he or she cannot be blamed for.  The story is this: Gia (aka Polizzi) and her cousin Bella have come to the Jersey Shore looking for love and adventure and, of course, juicehead gorillas*.  Along the way, they get themselves into some wacky, wacky situations, including, but not limited to: an exploding oven, the unintentional saving of a beached shark, an attempted rape, laxative-laden jell-o shots**, and some unusual encounters in a tanning bed.  It is basically a slightly exaggerated episode of Jersey Shore.  But only slightly. 

The writing is, well, exactly what you would expect from this sort of thing.  Childish is probably the best word to describe it.  It's another example of see? just like us! so funny! writing.  When she tries to get descriptive, we get gems like this: "they [a bunch of potheads smoking under the boardwalk] huddled together like a family of Ellis Island immigrants just off the Mayflower".  Amazing, how those 17th century pilgrims transported forward in time into the 19th century somewhere across the Atlantic. 

The truly frightening part is - and this is true for the show too - I can't decide if she's being serious or not.  If she is, then I really do weep for humanity.  But if she isn't - if she is on the joke and playing us all - then she is a freaking genius.  Someone, somewhere, had the gall to charge $24.99 for a hardcover copy of this thing.  That takes a lot of chutzpah.  But people bought it.  Hell, I bought it.  I bought it for $4.99 at the supermarket, but still.  It's a fist-pumping empire.  And this book is one of the more entertaining parts of it.

LENGTH: 304 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Try as you might, you can't escape the phenomenon that is Jersey Shore.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: I want to say no.  I want to say you must not feed the monster and encourage the downfall of civilization.  But if you like Jersey Shore, then go ahead.  Any brain cells it would have killed have been done in by the show, anyway.

*A part of me just died typing that.
**An event that almost derails the course of true love, as explosive diarrhea often does.