Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Bonk by Mary Roach

Mary Roach is a master of the 'But wait, there's more!'

The end of a chapter is a natural place at which to leave a bookmark (or egads, dogear a page), a rest area to allow the reader to digest what's been read, to go make lunch or catch up on work. But no, everytime I reached the end of a chapter in Bonk, Roach has to throw in a last sentence like this: "And, if so, about how you convince someone to have sex in front of an ultrasound technician or inside an MRI tube." Now how can anyone place her bookmark right on that page and set the book down after reading that? A reader has no choice but to flip to the next chapter and read on. She is dastardly, that Mary Roach.

Like Stiff, Bonk isn't for the squeamish. As a fan of CSI, CSI: NY (but not CSI: Miami), I thought, eh, shouldn't be a problem for me. But I overestimated myself. There are parts which are quite cringe-y, and like Roach said, "I do so hope they wore lab glasses." However, there were more "haha"s than "eew"s, as Bonk is an incredibly fun book, even more so when read out loud (preferably not in public).

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