Two Like Me and You Book Review
If John Hughes and Bill Bryson had a love child it would be Chad Alan Gibbs
If John Hughes and Bill Bryson had a love child it would be Chad Alan Gibbs.
Gibbs is author of multiple books, award-winning humor columnist, and — in the interest of disclosure — my long-time friend.
Can you trust me to review my friend’s book?
Can I trust that you, a total internet stranger, are not a French policeman or that you don’t read Sadie Evans tabloids?
I suppose we’ll need to assume the best in each other.
Two Like Me and You is Gibbs’s novel debut, a comedic love story revolving around three central characters:
Edwin Green is the so-called hero, though he is not heroically inclined. But Edwin does have a knack for falling in love with beautiful girls — Sadie Evans, who becomes a celebrity after being captured on the kiss-cam at a Braves Game — and Parker Haddaway, red-headed protagonist of the story.
Parker is a blend of Molly Ringwold, Katniss Aberdeen and Tricia Gibbs. Tough, fearless and beautiful, Parker forges a special bond with 90-year-old Garland Lenox, cajoles Edwin to join the quixotic adventure and provides an endless stream of 90’s hip-hop music references to serve as soundtrack to the novel.
Garland Lenox, my favorite character, is a feisty, foul-mouthed, tall-tale-telling WWII veteran who enlists Edwin and Parker’s help to break out of an Alabama retirement home and travel to France in search of his long-lost love in the bombed-out town of Saint-Lô.
Though Parker and Edwin are supposedly breaking out of present-day high school to flee to France, the humor and story is designed for full-blown adults. I’m not sure teenagers laugh in real life, only via text-message emoji, so a mature audience is probably a good choice by a humorist author.
Ready Player One-esque trivia runs through the book, ranging from history to sports, French curse words to rap lyrics, celebrity culture to conservative Christian cults.
The best comedic moments are situational jokes at expense of Edwin’s faux-celebrity ex-girlfriend Sadie Evans; evil lawyer Lucian Figg; the Omaha Prophetic Presbyterians, and the multiple victims of elderly Garland Lenox’s verbal and physical explosions.
Two Like Me and You is Funny, not Faulkner. Know that going in and you’ll be happy with this endearing, hilarious love story.
Supposedly the tale is fiction, but as Garland Lenox reminds us, “you can’t make this sh*t up!”
