How to Piss Off Men - Kyle Prue - ★★

AUTHOR: Kyle Prue

GENRE: Humour

PUBLICATION DATE: September 17, 2024

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: I expected a funnier book. Then again, ‘funny’ is a subjective term, so this might be a good gag gift. But most of this content was boring to me.

It is very easy to guess why I requested this book – the title was almost like a fishhook that grabbed me and didn’t let me go. I was also curious that this was written by a man. So would it be a realistic expose on what men are truly afraid of hearing, or would it end up patronising women into thinking that they can do better with their barbs? The tagline was also interesting. 106 things not to hurt male emotions, or make them introspect, but to “shatter the male ego” – a strong claim.

Sadly, the potential was not met.

There are various reasons why this didn’t work for me. I won’t say it ‘did not live up to my expectations’ because I didn’t have any expectations in the first place except of finding an entertaining read. But in all honesty, I think the main reason is that we women are, in general, better at sarcastic barbs than men are. (Not something to boast about, I know.) But this isn’t a review about women or their talent for hitting where it hurts most when someone pisses them off, so let’s return to the book.

The comebacks herein are quite lacklustre. Most of the content aims to channelize reverse psychology into breaking a man’s confidence, but the retorts feel mostly juvenile. The author admits in his initial disclaimer that some of these retorts are easier for him to say as a cis white man. I think that defeats the point of the book to a great extent.

The responses are also highly situation-specific, with some situations being once-in-a-way encounters such as watching MMA or talking to a man who is explaining to you the concept of a secret identity. Thus, while there officially are “106 things to say”, the practical application of these is minimal.

(Note: The NetGalley, Goodreads, and Amazon covers have been updated to say that there are 109 retorts in this book. My cover and book had only 106. I didn't bother to check if three more comebacks have been added to the ARC as they wouldn't have saved the book anyway.)

The pop culture references are exclusively American, so this is certainly not a global advisory. There are a multitude of US-specific concepts and abbreviations such as JROTC or Kohl's Cash, which went over my head. (Not the author’s fault that an Indian reader gave his book a try. So the benefit of doubt in this round goes to him.)

Obviously, we don’t read such books for actual implementation of the barbs but for laughs. However, I barely cracked a smile during this entire book. Only two of the retorts actually felt clever. The rest were mostly meh to my ears, and after a point, the whole thing felt repetitive.

On the pro side, it’s not offensive or condescending or patronising towards woman – I’ll give the author credit for this. I also loved the line in the opening note: “Women want to be loved, and men want to feel important.” Then again, this is something I already read in “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, so…

The most heartfelt content (honestly, I wasn’t expecting heartfelt content in this book, so this took me by surprise) is the final chapter titled “Why to Piss Off Men”, which is not at all what it sounds like. This chapter was brilliant (patriarchy having put both men and women in boxes – excellent analogy!), and while I might not agree with the rest of the book, I respect the intent of the author the way he has explained it in this section.

Basically, humour is quite subjective. So this book might still make some other readers guffaw. The author is supposedly a known online personality, actor and comedian, but I am not so much into movies these days (and I have no legal access to Tiktok), so I have no clue about his work. Maybe fans of his stand-up comedy would enjoy this better as some jokes are better heard than read.

I can advocate this as a light-hearted book to be borrowed from the library and read for entertainment value, or it could work as a prank gift. (But I am not sure whom you could gift it to.)

A shoutout to the cover pic – I love the expressions of the women in that artwork.

My thanks to SOURCEBOOKS (non-fiction) for providing the DRC of “How to Piss Off Men” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn't work out better.