3.5 ( )

an enjoyable read! ( )

funny, quick read ( )

helping 80 year old Dad find dates. Memoir by a pathetic, insecure, self absorbed whiner evolves into a touching story of love between Father and Son. Really glad I stayed with it beyond the offputting first one third. ( )

After a long and debilitating disease takes Ethel Morris' life, her husband Joe, at 80 years old, is eager to date again only a few months later. He enlists his son Bob, this book's author, to help him by calling personals for him and listening to his dating trials. Meanwhile, Bob is having dating woes of his own. (And don’t be followed by the book’s subtitle – the only thing that resembles a double date in this book comes in the last 20 pages.) This premise is only so-so and the writing style doesn't make up for it. In particular, the metaphoric language is often just ridiculous – for example, “The surf is so picturesque today – 2 percent-skim foam waves are frothing against wheat-toast sand.” Cringe. The author is whiny and self-absorbed, coming across as a petulant teenager despite being 40. He (and to some extent his father) remind me of the characters in the television series Seinfeld - not the best pick of the bunch themselves but seemingly incapable of accepting other people, instead favoring nitpicking to find things wrong with their potential girlfriends and boyfriends. The book is marketed as being funny, but mostly I found the author to be too superficial for me to care about his so-called witty opinions. However, the book did on some level raise some big questions about the nature of parent-child relationships so I appreciated that. Also, the book is a light read, quite easily finished in a few sittings. Overall, however, I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it. ( )