Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

• Title: Sh*t My Dad Says 
• Classification: Adult Nonfiction
• Genre: Nonfiction/Comedy
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: It Books; First Printing edition (May 4, 2010)
• ISBN-10: 0061992704
• ISBN-13: 978-0061992704

When Justin Halpren moved back home to live with his parents, he decided to set up a twitter account and tweet the things his dad, Sam, said. Soon he discovered he had quite a following and not long after, he received offers from publishers wanting him to create a book of these comedic tidbits of wisdom from his father. The rest, as they say, is history and he came out with a book, and, a TV series in 2010 which lasted one season entitled,'$#*! My Dad Says'. The actor who played Justin's dad was William Shatner.

After reading the first few chapters of this book I understood just how appropriate the title 'Sh*t My Dad Says' truly was. The term swears like a sailor came to mind. Almost every tidbit of information Sam instills to his son contains the word sh*t in it. A friend of mine racked this up to him being male and all males having a strange fascination with the bodily function which creates the excrement. In other words, "It's a guy thing."

Behind the humor and the colorful language, is some sound advice. As you read through the book, it becomes obvious the man loves his kids. It's equally obvious he doesn't care what other people think of him. He tells it to you straight and makes no excuses. He says what he means and means what he says. Perhaps that is what makes the book so funny, he says things you can't believe he'd openly admit to. Some of which you may agree with, but would never openly voice. Even three-year-old children are not safe/excluded from his bluntness, as was witnessed when Sam told a 3-year-old relative who was running around screaming it was his birthday, that it was not his birthday.  As Sam says, "A three-year-old doesn't have a license to act like an @sshole."  

Included among the many quotes, are short stories that Justin included about growing up with his dad. By far my favorite is the one where Sam believes there is an intruder and decides to defend his house buck naked. Turns out to be just a sister-in-law making a sandwich in the middle of the night. I'm sure the sister-in-law never got up in the middle of the night to make a sandwich ever again while visiting. I guess putting some clothes on before grabbing your gun to confront the robbers would have given them too much time to steal some of his sh*t. As Sam states, "This is m house, g*dd@mn it! I gotta defend MY house!"

I found this a hilariously funny book that made me laugh a lot. I wasn't going to read it, but the Goodreads group, of whom I'm a moderator of, picked this to be one of our November books of the month. I have to admit I grew up in an environment where your mouth was washed out with soap if you used a word deemed "bad". I gave this one 3 1/2 out of 4 roses.

NOTE: You can also get a dose of what Sam has to say by following Justin's twitter account: https://twitter.com/#!/shitmydadsays