Books The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - It's a Howl
Born in the 40s, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard reading a book. On the New York subways, where passengers give new meaning to the word "jaded," even they look at me as if I'm crazy as I cackle aloud. Bill Bryson has put me on the nostalgia express, somehow making every paragraph worth at least a chortle as he reminds me, who grew up on the East Coast, about life surprisingly so like mine in his Midwest. School, parents, cars, television, sexual mores and a raft of other subjects are the targets of his incisive and derisive wit. Not even having reached the sad day when I will finish this book, I couldn't wait to write my first Amazon review. I'm also personally recommending it to all my roughly Baby Boom friends. Don't fail to read this book, which, in case you missed my point, I loved unreservedly.

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Rating: - Was prepared to like it but halfway thru it gets pretty old
Reading this for a book discussion group, I thought it would be lighter than some we read and having been born in '53 I thought I could relate. Well after half the book it gets pretty old. I mean who couldn't write such a book? I was there, I watched Batman and Sea Hunt, too, so what's so entertaining about reading about someone else who did, too but decided to put it down on paper? The hyperbole is what makes it funny at times, and at other times the exaggeration catches you off guard. And what's the point of using the "F" word out of the blue??? Pretty strange to find this in a book about one's youth, and I'm no prude; it's one of my favorites; I just find it totally out of place here! The thing about romanticizing about the past is, you know it's all BS, that things are being looked at with rose-colored glasses and they weren't really as good as you remember them. Ok, it's supposed to be light, but there's a certain phony character about such superficial treatment of an era like the 50s, and families weren't really all like Donna Reed and Father Knows Best. Remember, I was there, too. The Thunderbolt Kid is a truly minor character, too, to the point of it being invented just for the sake of having a cutesy title.

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Rating: - A good laugh for the babyboomers....
This was such a good laugh, I fell out of my chair....I also decided to buy a copy for my brother who was born the same year as Bryson. Although we weren't born in Iowa, our grandparents were from there, and there are definitely cultural attributes that came down to us from them! But even better, it isn't just funny. Bryson shares poignant reflections on some of what we've lost along the way since the 50's, as nuts as they were.

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Rating: - One star for his father's prose
After reading some of the positive reviews, and even the negative ones, I regret that this was my first go at Bill Bryson's oeuvre; this one has put me so far off of him I'm unlikely to pick up another of his books, ever.

The further into the book I got, the more the endless stream of exaggerations piled up to the point that it led me to doubt every single word he has written here, except when quoting his father ("the defense fiddled while Burns roamed" - now that's brilliant). His total abuse of the reader's trust completely undermines even the truly humorous passages of the book (there are about 3).

Like other readers, I found the use of profanity gratuitous and completely out-of-touch with the age. (It would have been truly funny to read the repertoire of the actual swear words people did use as they repressed the really nasty ones). Also offensive is his racial stereotyping as he over-protests against any racial awareness at the time (except the black kids were all cool, exceptional athletes while the white ones were all lame, lumpy doofuses). And did a black pre-teen in the 1960s from a hardworking respectable family really use the kind of street slang you might hear in a gang-infested slum today as he beats in some kid's face in the lunch line? Or was this just a convenient stab at humor likely to play on his audience's own unconscious prejudices?

A sad book, because there is promise in that writing, but the boredom (leading to fabrication) and rage (leading to spite and diatribe) that seeps in at all corners saps the book of all its strength.