The Facebook Book: A Satirical Companion

This book is not going to teach you anything at all about Facebook, if you want to learn how to use the site or how to improve your profile I suggest Facebook for Dumbies. In fact, some of the suggestions the authors make don't even make sense (forinstance, accepting a friend and then immediately deleting them). HOWEVER, this is an EXTREMELY funny book that has a lot of great jokes and is a very entertaining satire of the sorts of people you meet on Facebook, dating on Facebook, etc. It is worth investing in just for the laughs--I was reading it on the bus and it was so funny I almost missed my stop. Just don't expect to learn anything, and you'll have a good time.

First off, anyone familiar with the term 'facebook' will find something, if not everything, endearing about this book. Keep in mind that this tackles the topic of a transmutable subject, which has effectively made this book more of an archive of how Facebook was circa 2007 than anything else. But go ahead and reflect on something that literally just happened and indulge in the nostalgic paralysis that is 2008. Secondly, and this is for the editors, I would have preferred it had all the profile archetypes been lumped together in the middle of the book, like a mini-facebook flanked by commentary only because a) it would have had a greater impact on the reader, particularly if these archetypes had been expanded upon to include lesser known but ubiquitous users (ie. insecure old-money set on proving their effortless lifestyle to onlooking 'friends') b) on several occasions I found some of these supplementary sidebars jarring to the point where I'd read two pages before realizing that I'd skipped an entire section c) a tactile facebook? who doesn't love irony? Additionally, what the f happened to the original book cover? A few months ago it felt so regal and timeless, like it should have been wearing a smoking jacket and hosting masterpiece theatre. Now it reminds me of something trying to be something that is and has been dated for 20 years, if not the male counterpart to a Molly Jong-Fast novel. **** Organizational problems and exterior aesthetic aside, this book is to facebook users what a david sedaris is to david sedaris: a self-deprecating inside joke for the very group of people it came to define. ****

I must say, when I heard that three Harvard alumni had conspired to produce a parody of Facebook, I automatically assumed that it wouldn't be that funny, and certainly totally impertinent to the average Facebook user. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find out that the book is not only hysterical, but I imagine virtually every Facebooker can find something they can relate to in this book.