Thank you NetGalley and Dime House publishing for the Arc of this book of poetry.

I’m not going to lie, I picked this book up based on its title. And I’m really glad I did. This short book is filled with fun and amusing poems.

My favourite poems of the collection have to be Summer of ‘99. Every time I see a UFO I think of your boobs

And, The Ballad of Andrew Garfield. You either die a hero or live long enough to see a reboot.

This book would make a great gift for the Instagram Poets or Internet People in your life.

You don’t have to like poetry to enjoy this, but I do think you have to have a very specific type of humor, and I’m not sure how exactly to describe that humor. Let’s see: You must have an appreciation for absolute ridiculousness. You must think morbid references are hilarious. You must realize that deliberately offensive things aren’t offensive if they are deliberately offensive. Or maybe they are. I don’t even know. You must, at least, be willing to accept their deliberate offensiveness. You must not rely too heavily on logic. You must realize you’re being illogical when you try to make sense of these poems. You must go in knowing that this book requires at least 72 content warnings and you must think that, in itself, is funny. If your sense-of-humor meets these requirements, you will quite likely enjoy this book.

Personally, I could not look away. This book was like a terrible accident scene that I felt ashamed for staring at for too long. Except that the book was funny and accident scenes aren’t. I was so amused that I texted several of the poems to my husband while he was at work, as his sense-of-humor also meets the qualifications. While this may not be the right read for everyone, it was exactly what I needed today!

Also, what a cute cat!

I am immensely grateful to NetGalley and 8th Circle Books for my digital review copy.

The Jack Handey Blurb is Fair

For me, Handey's "Deep Thoughts" hit the target about 80% of the time, which is surprisingly high for a collection of whimsical, oddball thoughts. Shaffer's poems were a bit more hit or miss, but still very much worth looking at. There are a few "I have to read you this" selections, which is always a terrific sign. I don't know about the cat, but Shaffer can stay his Mom's Poet Laureate.

Thank you, NetGalley for this ARC!

Andrew Shaffer is a mood. And I'm going to buy this for everyone I know. From the cover to the actual poems, this is absolutely fantastic!

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

Books like this are always hard to review. Sometimes I’ve read poetry books that are critically acclaimed that I couldn’t get into – perhaps I’m an uncultured swine and can’t handle it or some such. Other times the humor isn’t for me, and I read the book with mild annoyance. Good news, that wasn’t this book, as I quite enjoyed this. Andrew Shaffer has collected a series of short poems, asides, and observations that are not too dissimilar to the old 90s era SNL skit “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey” without completely ripping the style off. Some are better than others, but the ones I really liked made me laugh out loud which is a plus for any humor book.

This is a very quick read, so keep that in mind if you are considering a purchase. But if you or your BFF likes goofy poetry, this would make a great small gift, stocking stuffer, or bathroom reader. After reading this, I plan to look at some of the author’s other works.

I am a recent reader of poetry and this is spot on for a newbie. There's plenty of humor and feeling the feels with this one. It's also a quick read since I flipped through it page by page for the purpose of this review. I always prefer poetry books in print version so I can markup and take notes. I appreciate the #sponsored poems as well!

Would recommend.

A very odd book but one I thoroughly enjoyed. Very quirky and some themes running through many of the poems. A couple made me smile.

Oh this was so fun!

I laughed so much reading these!

Serious at times, humorous more often than not, this collection is for fans of Jack Handey for sure. Just such a good time I read right through it and was sad it ended! Definitely recommend! I love it so much I want to go read it again and look for more by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and 8th Circle Entertainment for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.