Official Review: Stand and Deliver by Adrian Marshall

[Bfrisco]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Stand and Deliver" by Adrian Marshall.]

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Stand and Deliver by Adrian Marshall is a collection of short comedic stories, describing the day to day life of a Chinese delivery driver with a penchant for mischief and fun. The collection ranges from tales of hassling telemarketers and clipboard ladies to deliveries that have taken a turn for the interesting.

The author interweaves stories of his job with accounts of dealing with neighbors and repairman, including one particularly funny bit about his disappointment with a repairman who actually does his job, rather than giving him an excuse to complain and/or write letters about terrible service. I appreciated how well the author could turn a strange occurrence during a routine delivery or day of his life into a story interesting enough to generate laughter.

A couple of stories made me chuckle, many made me laugh aloud, and a few were underwhelming, due to some jokes falling flat (the double meaning of alarmed for an alarmed door, for example). There were a couple of instances where I felt the humor went a bit over the top or leaned a bit toward the raunchy side, but to be honest that could be something of a cultural difference, because the author is from the UK whereas I am not. Regardless of the minor differences in terminology, the humor translates. However, one story in particular, concerning a religious man who begins by preaching to a crowd of one and winds up being utterly transfixed, to the point of drooling, by a nude woman was slightly uncomfortable to read.

One of the nicer aspects of this book is that if one short story isn’t quite as funny, the next might be hilarious. Each story is entirely separate from the next, which also allows for the reader to spend as much or as little time reading as they’d like.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I had anticipated a silly romp through the life of a Chinese deliveryman, and while that loosely describes what I read, I found it a great deal more enjoyable than I had expected. I easily read it in one sitting, partly due to its short length and largely due to how easy it was to read “just one more story”.

I would rate this book 3 out of 4, because I did enjoy reading it and it certainly did make me laugh at times, but at times the humor didn’t click with me and a couple instances even made me slightly uncomfortable.

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[KLyons1]

When I saw this title, I thought of the math student movie by the same name, starring Edward James Olmos. This is clearly not the same story, but sounds very interesting all the same.

[Bfrisco]

I just read the synopsis on imdb for the movie. Definitely not the same, but the movie does sound interesting, too!

[KLyons1]

The movie was good - and all the better for being based on a true story. Enjoy!

[amarshall]

Thank you for a positive review.

I'm sorry that a couple of stories made you feel uncomfortable, but life is a little bit like that at times.

As you say, I am a Brit, and I accepted from the outset that humour doesn't always travel well across cultural/country boundaries, so I kept the whole book very Brit rather than attempting any form of multi-cultural/country effort. As that might well have ended up with a confusingly bland mixture. I'm glad that you found some of it enjoyable.

Once again thank you for your review.

Adrian Marshall.

[sophiachic]

I have to say the movie review was good and it was indeed.

[Bfrisco]

I really did enjoy reading it! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your book. I think maintaining a British style of humor was the best choice, but I mentioned it in case that was something a potential reader would like to know.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed it a lot! Thank you again!