Lunatics (Dave Barry & Alan Zweibel, 2012)

It's been far too long since the last Dave Barry novel, so discovering Lunatics was a pleasant surprise. While it falls short of the previous two, Big Trouble and Tricky Business, it definitely tops them both in the gross-out department.

The book certainly starts off strong, but I think if what I heard is true, that Barry and Zweibel alternated chapters, they pushed each other way too far by the end. I've seen this happen. My friend and I wrote a 70-part (unfinished) serial story, taking turns, and invariably things went from simple to ridiculous, and we weren't even trying to be funny outside of some gentle satire on what we were learning about in our classes. Therefore a funny story about two very different, yet ordinary, guys exploded into a massive global drama. Although things certainly got comically out of hand in Dave Barry's earlier novels, it somehow managed to fold itself back together neatly at the end.

And a word about the gross-out department. Dave Barry puts a disclaimer in front of all of these books to ward off children from accidentally learning how to curse. That's fine, I'm cool with bad words, so rock on. However, there may need to be a disclaimer that some adults may find the "Dumb and Dumber" type of humor to be a bridge too far. While this hasn't stopped me from adding Barry's latest book, Insane City, to my queue, I'm hoping the toilet humor was just a temporary diversion.