Audiobook Review: Guys Read: Funny Business

Guys Read: Funny Business (Guys Read, 1) by Jon Scieszka, Kate DiCamillo, Jeff Kinney, David Lubar, Adam Rex, David Yoo, Mac Barnett, Eoin Colfer , Christopher Paul Curtis, Paul Feig, Jack Gantos, narrated by Bronson Pinchot, Michael Boatman, John Keating, September 22, 2010. 5 hours 46 minutes. Published by Harper Audio. Source: YA Audio Sync.

It’s here: Volume One of the official Guys Read Library. Jon Scieszka’s Guys Read initiative was founded on a simple premise: that young guys enjoy reading most when they have reading they can enjoy. And out of this comes a series that aims to give them just that. Ten books, arranged by theme, featuring the best of the best where writing for kids is concerned. Each book is a collection of original short stories, but these aren’t your typical anthologies—each book is edgy, inventive, visual, and one-of-a-kind, featuring a different theme for guys to get excited about.
Funny Business is based around the theme of—what else?—humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and Guys Read, you already know what you’re in store for: ten hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; the only kid in his middle school who hasn’t turned into a vampire, wizard, or superhero; and more. And the contributor list includes bestselling author, award winners, and fresh new talent alike: Mac Barnett, Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kate DiCamillo (writing with Jon Scieszka), Paul Feig, Jack Gantos, Jeff Kinney, David Lubar, Adam Rex, and David Yoo.
Guys Read is all about turning young readers into lifelong ones—and with this book, and each subsequent installment in the series, we aim to leave no guy unturned.  

First Sentence:

Ernest was a nerd, but it was fourth grade: we were all nerds.

Story
I know that title of Guys Read: Funny Business has funny in the title, but I was not expecting it to laugh as much as I did while listening to it-I generally do not find funny things...funny.

As I listened to Guys Read: Funny Business, I could not help but enjoy the vast differences between each of the short stories. You had the ones that were made to make you laugh; the ones that subtly tried to inform you that maybe, just maybe that thing you're thinking of doing is perhaps not in your best interest; and the ones that made you wonder how on earth that kid was still alive (I'm thinking of you final short).

But what really sets this book of short stories apart from others is that each of the stories are entertaining in their own right. Not a single one of them were dull, nor did they make me wish to skip over them and move on to the next one. I just generally enjoyed this book and was saddened when I realized that there was not another track to listen to.

As for what I liked most while listening to Guys Read: Funny Business I'm going to go with one of shorts. The short I liked best was "Unaccompanied Minors" because Jeff Kinney, in my opinion, did a great job on depicting the odd relationship between siblings. I especially liked how the two brothers went from them 'testing' each other to slowly becoming more of friends.

Even though I enjoyed Funny Business, a few of the stories were actually kind of sad and made me wonder why they were included in what looked to be an all-around funny book. To say that the sad stories were unexpected would be putting it mildly, but they did kind of even out the book even if I perhaps didn't want to read some sad tales. To end my rambling, I'll just say that while the sadder stories were good, they are my least favorite thing about this book.

Narration

I had no idea that one of my favorite narrators, John Keating, would be doing a couple of the stories in Guys Read: Funny Business but am so glad that he did.
On a whole I enjoyed the narration of this audio book because the readers did such a great job. I was surprised by how much I liked the narration and how well the readers did when it came to voicing the younger characters.

Out of all the narrators in the book, I loved John Keating (no surprise there) and Bronson Pinchot. I felt that the two of them did the best job with the stories they were given to narrate. They really brought the characters to life and made there stories-from the funny to kind of sad ones-so hard to walkaway from.

The only thing I did not like about this audio book would have to be that there were a couple shorts that I had no idea what they were called. Why, because there names were mentioned either too quickly, or the transition from short to short had not enough break between the beginning and end.

Final Verdict: Guys Read: Funny Business had me laughing pretty much from star to finish, and that is no easy feat.

Guys Read: Funny Business earns 4 out of 5 pineapples.