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Book Review of The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters

The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters
guestreviewer avatar reviewed on + 39 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


This is certainly the best book I've ever read about the muddling and fumbling of college kids trying to figure out wtf to do with their lives, for starters. But more than that, it's an intelligent and humorous book for intelligent and humorous people. Of course, you should be forwarned: this book's sense of humor is decidedly dark, so if you like your humor like you like your coffee (a thick and muddy black) then you may want to steer clear.

Chip Kidd has written an awesome book about art school, and the crazy types that end up there, being humored by teachers who can't do, so they teach. Art School Confidential is in the same league, but focuses more on the politics of the larger art world, vs. Kidd's take on the politics of art school and its jostling academics. (The title of the book, in fact, comes from a student art project.)

It's also about graphic design, which Chip Kidd knows plenty about, having designed some of the world's most famous book covers. Here, the university's graphic design teacher is quite the sadist, though perhaps he's earned his right to be, given the fools he must perpetually suffer.

If you've ever seen a brilliant example of graphic design (or, conversely, a truly horrific piece of trash that could have USED a graphic designer--and bemoaned this fact), you will surely enjoy this book. Love it.