Edward Ugel

This memoir about the lottery-winner-milking industry conveys a fair amount of fascinating sociological/financial info along with Ugel's energetic personal history. The book suffers a little from Ugel's fear of being sued for breaching his non-disclosure agreements with the Firm--many more factual details about actual lottery winner cases and amounts and Firm paychecks would have been welcome.

This is an odd type of whistleblower's story wherein the whistleblower has already been paid millions not to tell his story and hopes to make more millions telling a sanitized version without getting sued by his ex-colleagues. But Ugel does a good job of lifting the veneer of respectability off lotteries and showing the ugliness linking video poker, casino gambling, lotteries, and "high finance."… (mer)

It was left for me at work by a joker who assumed I would be annoyed (I'm carrying some extra timber these days). The cover caught my eye with the 'fifty miserable weeks' strap line. I knew this wouldn't be the usual feel good story of soomeone who got fit and loved every minute of this.

As Edward happily admits he wouldn't have undertaken this period of weight loss had it not been for the fact his weight had given him sleep apnea. This meant that he had to wear a breathing mask at night which he hated and scared his kids. It also scared him to think about what damage he had done to his body over the years.

I wont go much more into the ins and outs of what happens but will say he tells it with great humour. Not everything goes well and he really looks into why he fails when he does and what makes him push on when he doesnt want to. The tone is light hearted and this makes it a very easy read. The only slight downer is that he doesnt have a job during all this time as he is a writer and using the experience to write this book. This makes it a little hard to really identify with his life at times.… (mer)

For me, at least, it's never fun to write a bad review. Instead, it feels like more of an obligation - a need to warn people off. It's doubly off-putting to give any weight-loss memoir a one-star review, because I generally relish reading about the journey of people working from unhealthy to healthy.

That said, I have to be honest. Ultimately, this book was nothing short of a chore. The catchy title grabbed me, and I was excited to read Mr. Ugel's story because he is a self-described 'foodie'. In the first couple of chapters, I dimly recall laughing out loud at a few things - but Mr. Ugel's shtick becomes repetitive and dull very quickly. The author has clearly lived a life of extreme privilege, and it permeates this book. Readers must slog through egregious name-dropping and braggadocio, including references to the uber-exclusive private school he attended, world travel, behind-the-scenes Presidential inaugural parties and Mr. Ugel's years of cooking lessons with Jacques Blanc that began when he was eleven. Even if one leaves aside the fact that he can afford 3-hour personal training sessions multiple days per week, it would be awfully hard for anyone to relate with Mr. Ugel's 'struggle' to lose weight. The comedienne Kathleen Madigan once observed that it was mighty difficult to feel bad for Oprah and her struggle to lose weight, because she was literally rich enough to pay someone to follow her around and slap food out of her hands. While Mr. Ugel may not be anywhere near Oprah's league, he's hardly the Average Overweight American, either. I do hope his personal training sessions, cleanses and colonics were not tax-deductible in the name of 'work-related research'.

The narrative of the book is extraordinarily choppy and disjointed, and the print size is HUGE. It's as if the publishers knew they didn't have enough to make it a book, but went ahead with it, anyway. There's such a large (no pun intended) audience for stories of the struggle to live healthier that even *this* was published. I recommend that everyone seeking to live a healthier life who can also distinguish the proper use of "your" versus "you're" submit your manuscript for publication, tout de suite.

Side note: This author goes to great lengths to be sure that we all know he is a Democrat. Did you get that? He's a good liberal! Once again, a Democrat. Did I mention that he's a Democrat? The author shares this (irrelevant) information with his readers so many times, in fact, that one begins to wonder why. If Mr. Ugel hoped that it would make him seem more blue-collar and thus relatable, he is woefully mistaken.

I bought this book for $2.00, plus $4.00 shipping, and even at that I grossly overpaid. I was excited enough about this title to order another book written by Mr. Ugel, which has yet to arrive. May it be infinitely better than this one! I'm sure Mr. Ugel is a delightful friend and a loving father and husband, but this book is just awful. Steer clear.… (mer)