The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

written by Bill Bryson

I picked up this book because I thought I loved Bill Bryson. Certainly I did love A Walk in the Woods and have also enjoyed portions of A Short History of Nearly Everything and some of his travel writings. He's famous for his ability to capture the humor and idiocy of the places and people he visits, and Thunderbolt makes this evident - only this time it's not a travelogue of a physical journey, but a journey of his growing-up years.

But his writing, to me, falls short this time. It's funny but not funny. Part of it's a generational thing; I think people of Bryson's generation (who grew up in the fifties and sixties) might get more out of this book than I did. Some of the story line just felt plainly uninteresting, since the events of the time didn't hold personal relevance for me. And although the typical Bryson humor is there, I grew weary of his overused hyperbole. Sometimes it just felt like he was trying way too hard to be funny. Some of the humor was even annoying or offensive, like the frequent cutting references to the "fat kids" he grew up with, or the parts about constantly trying to persuade his classmate Mary O'Leary to disrobe.

After reading other Bryson stuff, this book felt like a disappointment. Like a quick, thrown-together patchwork of some of his childhood memories, with no real point to the story. If he hadn't already made a name for himself with his previous work, I don't think this book would be that big of a seller.