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What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer
Perhaps all of Jonathan Ames’ problems–and the genesis of this hilarious book–can be traced back to the late onset of his puberty. After all it can’t be easy to be sixteen with a hairless “undistinguishable from that of a five year old’s.”
This wonderfully entertaining memoir is a touching and humorous look at life in New York City. But this is life for an author who can proclaim “my first sexual experience was rather it was with a prostitute”–an author who can talk about his desire to be a model for the Hair Club for Men and about meeting his son for the first time.
Often insightful, sometimes tender, always witty and self-deprecating, What’s Not to Love? is an engaging memoir from one of our most funny, most daring writers.
This wonderfully entertaining memoir is a touching and humorous look at life in New York City. But this is life for an author who can proclaim “my first sexual experience was rather it was with a prostitute”–an author who can talk about his desire to be a model for the Hair Club for Men and about meeting his son for the first time.
Often insightful, sometimes tender, always witty and self-deprecating, What’s Not to Love? is an engaging memoir from one of our most funny, most daring writers.
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 23, 2000
About the author
Jonathan Ames
37 books724 followersJonathan Ames is an American author who has written a number of novels and comic memoirs, and is the creator of two television series, Bored to Death (HBO) and Blunt Talk (STARZ). In the late '90s and early 2000s, he was a columnist for the New York Press for several years, and became known for self-deprecating tales of his sexual misadventures. He also has a long-time interest in boxing, appearing occasionally in the ring as "The Herring Wonder".
Two of his novels have been adapted into films: The Extra Man in 2010, and You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Ames was a co-screenwriter of the former and an executive producer of the latter.
Two of his novels have been adapted into films: The Extra Man in 2010, and You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Ames was a co-screenwriter of the former and an executive producer of the latter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
December 19, 2011
What, indeed? I suppose i'll never know what I would've thought of Jonathan Ames' writing without first seeing his fiction and fictional self in TV's "Bored to Death." This book is madcap, graphic, onanistic in a variety of ways. Luckily, through the glare of all that (and the lens of knowing that however down/dirty his life was, he almost certainly is worrying less now about moving back in with his parents with three seasons of a hit show under his belt), it's his writing that wins out. Deliberate, sure, almost classical, his style and form are the perfect polite perpective from where to view his debauched subject matter. Also, hilarious and touching. More than once I had fits of laughter, more than once I was moved to the point of tears.
December 28, 2022
What's not to love indeed. Best stories compilation of Jonathan Ames as a young pervert
December 20, 2015
This book is comprised of a collection of articles the author wrote for a newspaper (the name of which escapes me). Strung together in book format like this, it resembles an autobiography but every now and then he’ll write something that reminds you that wasn’t the original intention.
This book is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. In fact, the title would benefit from swapping out the word ‘mildly’ with the word ‘extremely’. Ames’ self-professed perversions include lusting after under-age girls (the fact that he never acts on any of these fantasies just about prevents him from coming across as a paedophile), obsession with sexual organs and sexual performance… desire for just about any sexual act with any sexual partner, to be honest; he even has an encounter on a train that he describes as ‘making love’ to a dog which ends with both him and the dog having erections.
I’m hoping you’re getting an idea of the level of perversion we’re talking about here.
Ames, however, is neurotic enough and self-aware enough to not completely lose the reader’s sympathy. He talks with painful honesty about almost any subject, from the depths of his bowel movements right up to his unflagging love of his friends and family. He describes his relationship with his parents as Oedipal (not entirely inaccurately) but the purer love he has for his great aunt and young son is genuinely touching.
Largely due to the subject matter he chooses to write about, this book is often very funny… I laughed out loud a number of times. In fact, I’d probably have given this book five stars if I hadn’t already read his (I now realise) largely autobiographical novel ‘The Extra Man’, which covers a lot of the same ground, albeit fictionalised to varying degrees.
Anyway, I think I’d better read something slightly less perverted next… Does anybody have a copy of anything written by the Marquis de Sade I could borrow?
This book is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. In fact, the title would benefit from swapping out the word ‘mildly’ with the word ‘extremely’. Ames’ self-professed perversions include lusting after under-age girls (the fact that he never acts on any of these fantasies just about prevents him from coming across as a paedophile), obsession with sexual organs and sexual performance… desire for just about any sexual act with any sexual partner, to be honest; he even has an encounter on a train that he describes as ‘making love’ to a dog which ends with both him and the dog having erections.
I’m hoping you’re getting an idea of the level of perversion we’re talking about here.
Ames, however, is neurotic enough and self-aware enough to not completely lose the reader’s sympathy. He talks with painful honesty about almost any subject, from the depths of his bowel movements right up to his unflagging love of his friends and family. He describes his relationship with his parents as Oedipal (not entirely inaccurately) but the purer love he has for his great aunt and young son is genuinely touching.
Largely due to the subject matter he chooses to write about, this book is often very funny… I laughed out loud a number of times. In fact, I’d probably have given this book five stars if I hadn’t already read his (I now realise) largely autobiographical novel ‘The Extra Man’, which covers a lot of the same ground, albeit fictionalised to varying degrees.
Anyway, I think I’d better read something slightly less perverted next… Does anybody have a copy of anything written by the Marquis de Sade I could borrow?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 19, 2020
More pandemic comfort rereading - I think this is his best.
July 14, 2020
Brutally honest and personal, but entertaining, keeping a sexual thematic. It does bring to light the social status and story of certain social groups like the drag queens, or describes social situations of which feelings of embarrassment or insecurity we all come to feel at some point.
August 14, 2018
Funny, clever and often scatological.
The perfect read for a Jewish male (which I’m not).
The perfect read for a Jewish male (which I’m not).
February 3, 2011
I think one of the real unfortunate advantages of Jonathan Ames is that he recycles alot of his stories. I was really fascinated after Bored to Death season one (still anxiously awaiting season two to become available on Netflix grr...) In any case, Ames is funny and remarkably honest but between his books and the HBO series, I'm not sure fans really need to read a ton of his novels to get about 90% of his life experiences. These stories do tell as much about NJ and NY as they do the inner character that is the especially human Jonathan Ames and all of his internal struggles.
I read this in the bathtub while drinking gin late at night and I would recommend that as it seems perfect. Ames talks about being Jewish, balding, transvestism, fetishes and exhibitionism, traveling, alcoholism, delayed puberty, flatulence-pretty much everything and one can imagine that, if you know Ames in real life, you'll definitely end up in one of his stories. It's not life changing to read his work but it's thoroughly enjoyable all the same and somehow it's also comforting..this honesty...this ability of Ames to reveal everything even if it makes him look perverse or incompetent in any way.
I will refrain from posting a ton of quotes..most of them are witty but personal at the same time which makes them something you'll just have to read for yourself as a whole vs. a part of a whole but I really liked a couple things even separated including:
pg. 153, "I stood by the phone with the box of my son's toys, waiting like a tragic fool. I was utterly alone. Something out of a Flannery O'Connor story was going to happen to me. A serial killer was going to tell me I'd be a good man if there was a gun to my head my whole life."
pg. 263 "Venice is the most melancholy, beautiful, and surreal city in the world. It provokes me into yearning for romance. When I was first there in 1984 as a dreamy twenty-year old, I swore that I would only return with someone I loved. I failed to keep my vow. I came with someone I have mixed emotions about-myself-but I'd like to make that vow again, though it is pathetic."
I read this in the bathtub while drinking gin late at night and I would recommend that as it seems perfect. Ames talks about being Jewish, balding, transvestism, fetishes and exhibitionism, traveling, alcoholism, delayed puberty, flatulence-pretty much everything and one can imagine that, if you know Ames in real life, you'll definitely end up in one of his stories. It's not life changing to read his work but it's thoroughly enjoyable all the same and somehow it's also comforting..this honesty...this ability of Ames to reveal everything even if it makes him look perverse or incompetent in any way.
I will refrain from posting a ton of quotes..most of them are witty but personal at the same time which makes them something you'll just have to read for yourself as a whole vs. a part of a whole but I really liked a couple things even separated including:
pg. 153, "I stood by the phone with the box of my son's toys, waiting like a tragic fool. I was utterly alone. Something out of a Flannery O'Connor story was going to happen to me. A serial killer was going to tell me I'd be a good man if there was a gun to my head my whole life."
pg. 263 "Venice is the most melancholy, beautiful, and surreal city in the world. It provokes me into yearning for romance. When I was first there in 1984 as a dreamy twenty-year old, I swore that I would only return with someone I loved. I failed to keep my vow. I came with someone I have mixed emotions about-myself-but I'd like to make that vow again, though it is pathetic."
October 16, 2012
From the first few pages I was in love!!! His brutal honesty combined with his talent for writing makes for a fantastic, at times titilating, edgy, read!!! Having lived in Manhattan, I can relate to the setting of most of these stories. And being an aspiring writer, a broke teacher, searching for myself through my career, I can definitely sympathize with this author and it makes me feel a bit less sorry for myself ;-)
February 12, 2014
These first appeared serialized weekly in the New York Press. I decided to break off one or two a day and it served me well.
The usual Ames subject matter is here, drug use, literature, his blurred sexual identity, and his relationship with his parents, etc.
The usual Ames subject matter is here, drug use, literature, his blurred sexual identity, and his relationship with his parents, etc.
December 15, 2020
“I felt myself falling asleep; I closed my eyes, and then I thought, maybe I should just kill my self. Suicidal thoughts always sneak up on me like that. But I don’t mind them. They’re like aspirin. They calm me down.” What’s Not to Love: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer is a collection of Jonathan’s columns for the New York Post back in the day — columns about odd happenings in his life, ranging from how he lost his virginity to a prostitute to how he discovered he had a son in his early twenties to how he likes to go to transvestite bars etc etc. The stories are hilarious and bizarre and outrageous — I guess if you drink and fuck indiscriminately, a lot of interesting things happen! His writing is always wildly entertaining and hard to put down.
December 2, 2017
Maybe it’s reading this against the backdrop of all the bullshit that’s going on right now, but I really couldn’t stomach all the ogling of teenage tits and public exposure of testicles in these stories. That may have been funny 20 years ago, but now Ames and his friends just seem full-on perverted, not mildly, as the title indicates.
February 16, 2018
What's not to love er en utrolig humoristisk samling essay som dreier om Jonathan Ames' liv. Historier om skader, sykdom, kropp, sex, alkohol og litt mer sex fra et utrolig åpent og rått perspektiv. Alt blir så utrolig morsomt, men også varmt, på grunn av Ames evne til å fortelle ærlig og uten filter. Utrolig morsom som lydbok.
December 18, 2020
Memoirs and strange tales. Very engaging as an audiobook! I raced through this, sometimes appalled, but more often amused by the adventures and the extreme over-sharing. His friends must be very tolerant to be featured, especially artist ‘Harry Chandler’.
July 31, 2024
Obsessed with sex and determined to dive into every dodgy situation that the average person would run a mile from. Almost imperceptibly stylish writing, that immerses one in the story, without getting distracted by the writer's skills.
July 21, 2018
Enjoyed this and found myself chuckling out loud. That being said, I didn't finish it.
November 19, 2018
DNF. Stopped reading halfway through. Not that funny and not particularly interesting. Like a poor man's Sedaris. Blah.
December 23, 2018
Horney, yet endearing.
January 10, 2019
Wonderful writing, a weird life - he's so brilliantly comfortable about how uncomfortable he is in his skin.
January 28, 2020
I'll think about his undescended left testicle forever and in a way that's beautiful
December 16, 2020
Totally unpretentious clear and direct writing. Very enjoyable inside account of screwing up a life. Sex and drugs without the rock and roll. I wish there were more writers like this.
June 5, 2021
Hilarious, perverted, maybe slightly problematic, but I loved it.
March 14, 2024
Thank you, Jonathan. 3x.
May 10, 2024
He is a terrific writer, but still I lost interest. He writes about dumb stuff.
April 22, 2022
Hard to explain. An interesting collection of stories. Some really weird, others funny and touching. Inconsistent and not quite what I was expecting.
January 28, 2010
THIS is the book Neil Strauss wishes he wrote. While still raunchy, womanizing and anecdotal, the difference here is Ames can actually write. Plus, his self-deprecation is believable and endears him to the reader.
What's Not to Love? is a series of short stories chronicling Ames' life through the late eighties and early nineties at Princeton and in NYC. I think boys (ie, my boyfriend) are probably more inclined to like chapters like "I shit my pants in the South of France" but on the whole, Ames is entertaining enough that I breezed through all of the stories, even the gross ones.
Mildly perverted is a misnomer. Ames is totally perverted. Or maybe he's just more honest about his perversions. He has an Oedipus complex which he illustrates with uncomfortable stories from his babyhood up through his first experience with masturbation. Some of the stories are about traveling in Europe as a young man, lots are about women, and there's plenty of grossness: the aforementioned shitting in France, and a delightful little story about the time he got crabs.
Ames' stories about his son provide a touching counterpoint to the grossness, and they make the book. Ames didn't know his son existed until the boy was two years old, but he's since been a part of his life. I appreciate how honest Ames is as a writer-- laying out his embarrassments in the wide world of venereal diseases, but also writing about his struggles being a part-time parent, how much he loves his son, and how he tries to be a good dad.
None of this feels contrived, partly because Ames is so insecure. His insecurities were so far fetched and outrageous that they made me feel better about my own neuroses and short comings. And thank the gods that I've never had crabs.
What's Not to Love? is a series of short stories chronicling Ames' life through the late eighties and early nineties at Princeton and in NYC. I think boys (ie, my boyfriend) are probably more inclined to like chapters like "I shit my pants in the South of France" but on the whole, Ames is entertaining enough that I breezed through all of the stories, even the gross ones.
Mildly perverted is a misnomer. Ames is totally perverted. Or maybe he's just more honest about his perversions. He has an Oedipus complex which he illustrates with uncomfortable stories from his babyhood up through his first experience with masturbation. Some of the stories are about traveling in Europe as a young man, lots are about women, and there's plenty of grossness: the aforementioned shitting in France, and a delightful little story about the time he got crabs.
Ames' stories about his son provide a touching counterpoint to the grossness, and they make the book. Ames didn't know his son existed until the boy was two years old, but he's since been a part of his life. I appreciate how honest Ames is as a writer-- laying out his embarrassments in the wide world of venereal diseases, but also writing about his struggles being a part-time parent, how much he loves his son, and how he tries to be a good dad.
None of this feels contrived, partly because Ames is so insecure. His insecurities were so far fetched and outrageous that they made me feel better about my own neuroses and short comings. And thank the gods that I've never had crabs.
March 21, 2011
This would have one star, if not for the final few essays -- the final one in particular was actually quite moving, and went in the direction I hoped the book would go a long time ago: He finally begins to actually want to fix himself. But it's too little, too late.
I could see how these would be entertaining as a column, but as a memoir, this doesn't work. First of all, Ames' schtick does indeed get very old. We get it. You're perverted. You get off on men and women, but only kind of with men.
Ames' primary goal seems to be to shock the reader with his outrageousness. His penis and his Oedipus complex should have primary billing next to his name on the cover. In the first place, not all of it is that shocking -- and it CERTAINLY isn't shocking after the first few essays -- and in the second, it's painfully obvious that he's profoundly disturbed and sad and while he freely admits it, he never really explores it. So what you're left with is the rambling manifestations of a sad alcoholic in desperate need of therapy, but who never receives it. Throughout the collection, there's no real progression, and he seems to learn little. He struggles, over and over again, and yet only shows mild personal growth. It's like watching an alcoholic get drunk, over and over again. Amusing the first few times; terrifying and sad after a point.
As Ames himself told me via Twitter (oh, Internet), he very likely HAS progressed as a person, and these essays were gathered and written a long time ago. But that doesn't change my feelings on the book, the editors' selection and Ames as he was back then.
I could see how these would be entertaining as a column, but as a memoir, this doesn't work. First of all, Ames' schtick does indeed get very old. We get it. You're perverted. You get off on men and women, but only kind of with men.
Ames' primary goal seems to be to shock the reader with his outrageousness. His penis and his Oedipus complex should have primary billing next to his name on the cover. In the first place, not all of it is that shocking -- and it CERTAINLY isn't shocking after the first few essays -- and in the second, it's painfully obvious that he's profoundly disturbed and sad and while he freely admits it, he never really explores it. So what you're left with is the rambling manifestations of a sad alcoholic in desperate need of therapy, but who never receives it. Throughout the collection, there's no real progression, and he seems to learn little. He struggles, over and over again, and yet only shows mild personal growth. It's like watching an alcoholic get drunk, over and over again. Amusing the first few times; terrifying and sad after a point.
As Ames himself told me via Twitter (oh, Internet), he very likely HAS progressed as a person, and these essays were gathered and written a long time ago. But that doesn't change my feelings on the book, the editors' selection and Ames as he was back then.
November 5, 2016
hm...well, i got it because i loved one of his performances on The Moth (the one where he winds up doing crack in a Bowery flop hotel with a transsexual on Christmas). It was shocking and tender. He's kind of a wreck, but an interesting wreck who is surprisingly alert to kindness and intimacy.
Last night I read a bunch of the stories in this compilation of short auto-biographical pieces. They were along similar lines, and the best of it delivers similar pleasures. His troubled adolescence during which he shows his tender loving mother one of his first erections in the moment before understanding that one shouldn't do such things. A story in which he has sex with a trans woman he's not really attracted to, but his faked sexual pleasure seems to bring her a moment of validation and happiness. A dialog with a drunk in Saratoga Springs, during which nothing much happens, but...again, there's a certain unexpected empathetic dimension.
I'm giving it three stars as i really like something about his persona and he's got some good tales. But as writing I'm wanting a little more -- the stories were originally piece for NY Press and they feel that way a little. That is, they're good first-person pieces with surprising angles, but they get a little plodding if you read one after another -- the writing itself isn't that thrilling. I wonder if his novels are better or worse -- thus far he is his own best character and I can't quite imagine a book without that character.
Last night I read a bunch of the stories in this compilation of short auto-biographical pieces. They were along similar lines, and the best of it delivers similar pleasures. His troubled adolescence during which he shows his tender loving mother one of his first erections in the moment before understanding that one shouldn't do such things. A story in which he has sex with a trans woman he's not really attracted to, but his faked sexual pleasure seems to bring her a moment of validation and happiness. A dialog with a drunk in Saratoga Springs, during which nothing much happens, but...again, there's a certain unexpected empathetic dimension.
I'm giving it three stars as i really like something about his persona and he's got some good tales. But as writing I'm wanting a little more -- the stories were originally piece for NY Press and they feel that way a little. That is, they're good first-person pieces with surprising angles, but they get a little plodding if you read one after another -- the writing itself isn't that thrilling. I wonder if his novels are better or worse -- thus far he is his own best character and I can't quite imagine a book without that character.
August 14, 2014
Funny self-deprecating short stories are definitely something I enjoy (diehard Augusten Burroughs fan here)so I feel like I've read enough of this genre to have an opinion here. Let's start with the fact that I love that the book has a theme. I hate when short stories feel discombobulated and there's no string to tie things together for me mentally. The quality of the writing was great. Really the thing to discuss is the content here:
For me some of the stories were TOO perverted. And he didn't regulate "perverted" to mean only sexual... some of the stories were about bodily function mishaps and I found them downright gross. If I could have gotten rid of all the colonoscopy / shit stories and replaced them with depressed trannies + manginas, I would have probably given it 5 stars. There were a few simple stories that felt a little like mental palette cleansers nestled in here and there: so non-eventful that they didn't really seem to be stories as much as "Let me take a breath of fresh air and stare out the window for a few pages. Ok! re-commence the weirdness!" I wasn't so much opposed to these lulls, but they did make me too wonder just why the author felt they belonged in the collection.
Liked it, didn't love it. Would base a recommendation on the prospective audience.
For me some of the stories were TOO perverted. And he didn't regulate "perverted" to mean only sexual... some of the stories were about bodily function mishaps and I found them downright gross. If I could have gotten rid of all the colonoscopy / shit stories and replaced them with depressed trannies + manginas, I would have probably given it 5 stars. There were a few simple stories that felt a little like mental palette cleansers nestled in here and there: so non-eventful that they didn't really seem to be stories as much as "Let me take a breath of fresh air and stare out the window for a few pages. Ok! re-commence the weirdness!" I wasn't so much opposed to these lulls, but they did make me too wonder just why the author felt they belonged in the collection.
Liked it, didn't love it. Would base a recommendation on the prospective audience.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews