Rude Bitches Make Me Tired by Celia Rivenbark

I requested for this book on NetGalley because, well, an etiquette book swearing? And not just in the title, this book swears quite frequently throughout, so if you're very sensitive to swearwords, put this book down and back away slowly. The combination of etiquette advice and swearing may give you too big a shock to handle.

Basically, this book is written in a Q&A format, with a short introduction. It covers things like splitting the check, funeral behaviour, dinner party and even getting arrested. It's supposed to teach you about "modern etiquette dilemmas" so, I guess those are relevant topics for today.

Personally, I didn't like the book as much as I expect. Yes, it was fairly funny (though it wasn't funny all the time), but it wasn't useful. I just hope that the 'advice' part of this book was a gimmick because all the things the author reccomended were either things that I take for granted as basic human behavour. But maybe I'm wrong and there are people out there who really don't know basic manners.

As an etiquette book, I didn't find this book very useful. Perhaps it's because Japan is a very polite society, and even in Singapore, we're fairly polite, so whatever her advice is, it's either something that I think is natural or near the border line (for example, if I had guests, I would so pick them up from, and send them to the airport. I'd want them to have a good time. And I wouldn't expect them to help out around the house unless they offered. And if I'm a guest, I'll go out of my way to not be a nuisance - washing plates and whatnot. Most of my friends behave that way too).

On the whole, I give this book credit for being funny sometimes, but it's not very helpful, and if you're looking for funny 'how to' books, may I recommend Guy Browning (who, by the way, wrote a hilarious column on How to be Polite)?

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.