Michael Kun's Everybody Says Hello is a wonderful, funny epistolary (it means "consisting of letters," I looked it up a minute ago) novel. We deduce Sid Straw's adventures through his writing to his family, friends, co-workers, Heather Locklear, Obama, a black cop, and transvestite he met online. Everbody Says Hello is a perfect light read, and it was just a whole lot of fun--if not tummy-hurting hilarious.

Why I Wanted To Read It:
I was feeling hipster and wanted to read something that nobody heard about. Ok, not completely (even though I do lean towards box from big publishing houses.)
I came across LOLing at Books an article by Morgan Macgregor on BookRiot. And I was curious just how funny Kun was since he's capable of making someone laugh to the point she had to get off the bus.

Humor
It was a funny book, I chuckled a bit but I didn't find myself laughing out loud (even though I really wanted to.) I "get" the humor, but maybe timing just wasn't right or the jokes were too overt. Now I am having doubts about my sense of humor. Is there something wrong with me? I did like that the humor didn't depend on giving me a host of expletives (in fact, I'm sure there were no expletives even when Sid was furious, which made me admire the guy even more.) And didn't have fart jokes. HALLELUJAH!
The best way I can describe the humor is if you mixed Thoughts From Paris with E-mails From an Asshole (both are hilarious blogs I love) and sprinkled it with Becky Bloomwood (from Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series.) Not a good description? Well, I tried.

Sid Straw Is Just So Likable:
He is the perfect protagonist, a nice guy who sometimes does stupid things. You just can't dislike the guy; at one point, he feels guilty about ripping a page out of the hotel's yellow pages and proceeds to send the hotel twenty five bucks to replace it. And then sometimes he does hilarious things like trying to get the hotel to change "adult movie" into "Harry Potter" on his receipt. But somehow he just keeps getting stuck in unfortunate situations which leads to one misunderstanding after another--like accidentally sending a cat into a coma.

It's A "Sequel"
I didn't rad the first book (The Locklear Letters), but I don't think it hindered too much with the story and Everybody Says Hello can be read as a standalone. It makes me sad I don't know what this Eat Wheaties thing is all about though. Now I feel left out of a joke. I guess it's a good excuse to buy The Locklear Letters then.

Pace:
This book only looks gigantic, but you'll finish it in no time--if not because of the humor, because of the one word pages (don't worry, it's not another New Moon, nobody is suffering an emotional meltdown.) It may not look like it, but Everybody Says Hello is a very quick read. I wasn't sure where the story was going to go since unlike other novels, it doesn't leave much room for action and didn't have much of a plot, but I was very happy with the ending and the flow of the novel. My only caveat is that I forgot half the people he was exchanging postcards/letters with towards the end.

Stuff I Learned From Everybody Says Hello
Hiring a "lawyer," and threatening to file lawsuits is the best thing that can happen to you; and may also prove to be very lucrative. TV may not mean television. And guys asking to see your feet may not be because they have a foot fetish...but it's because they want to check if you are a girl. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: Picking up where 2003's The Locklear Letters left off, Sid Straw is leaving Baltimore in his rear-view mirror for the sunny, balmy climes of 2005 California, home of go-go-go and way too much money. On his way to take a job at Velocity Computers, Sid sends letters and postcards home to his recently-ex girlfriend, his mom and dad, his adored little nephew, as well as ahead to his college friend Heather...Locklear, that is, blonde bombshell actress...and his future employer's various official departments on every conceivable subject. He's particularly concerned that he get his personalized letterhead. Since the whole novel is letters from Sid, all 306pp of it, one can easily see why.

Hotel managers hear about bad in-room television service (no details, no spoilers, too funny to ruin), the company HR prune-lipped tightass hears about the letterhead, along with apologies for calling one of the accounting clerks fat while on an online dating site; Sid learns that his enthusiasm for old television shows doesn't mean it's safe to use the handle "TVLover123" on that online dating site, resulting in a hilarious exchange of notes with someone called "TVGirl," Heather, his college friend talks him down off ledges and bails him out of jail, all thanked by courteous notes...but Sid goes so far as to write notes to the hero cop who arrested him for cat poisoning (not a joke) even though he's innocent and who is suspended from the police force after Sid accuses him of being a violent racist which he didn't and this leads the Los Angeles Times investigative reporter to start a series of false and misleading articles about SYD Straw a transient/vagrant cat-poisoning liar (with the same name as a famous folk singer) which leads to...

...spiraling insanity, lawsuits, and ultimately one of the most surprising, touching, delightful, feel-good happy endings I've read in this century.

My Review: Everyone knows Sid Straw. Annoying, well-meaning, just a little bit socially tone-deaf, a little too intense, but a nice guy who never means to cause the mayhem he's always causing around himself. He's not exactly one of the gang and not exactly not. But he's always busy with something, and usually it blows up in his face.

Boy howdy, does this new job blow up in his face! A couple megatons go off under his feet when he gets to the new job and deals with a go-go, rock-'em-sock-'em boss who wants to be called "Mav" because it was Tom Cruise's nickname in Top Gun. There's even a movie poster for it in the conference room. And Sid becomes "Goose." And there's another guy called "Iceman." Could it get any cheesier? And yet, through Sid's lens, he's workin' it hard to keep the job, when the whole fat-co-worker incident conflates with the whole bad-in-room-movie incident and, well, bye bye job.

A return visit to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas to assuage his misery (and use the paid-fo, non-refundable room) causes one of the funniest incidents in the book, where his cranky response to the management's attempt at humor meets his unresolved love for the girl who dumped him, thus causing him no end of agony and getting the Las Vegas Health Department to quarantine him for almost a week as a suspected disease vector.

This book is a screwball comedy waiting to be filmed. It is quick, both in pace and in wit, and it is flawlessly self-centered as the best comedies are, and it keeps the pages flying, as the most enjoyable books do. Michael Kun, author of You Poor Monster and A Thousand Benjamins, has a deft hand, a keen eye, and a kind heart to go with his quick, acid-tipped tongue. ( )