Book Review: You're Only Human by The Gecko

.

BOOK review

Started on: 3.April.2014
Finished on: 3.April.2014

You're Only Human by The Gecko

Title : You're Only Human: A Guide to Life
Author : The Gecko

Publisher : Workman Publishing
Pages : 176 Pages
Year of Publication : 2013

Price : $ 12.69 (www.bookdepository.com/)

Rating: 3/5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think this is the first time I'm reviewing an illustrated book with only a little bit of text like this one. It was quite an impulsive buy, as I've said in my March post, but I had fun reading it. Before getting into the review itself, let's talk about The Gecko. The Gecko is a mascot for GEICO, an insurance company, and turns out to be very popular in commercials (although I didn't know this before I searched in Google, because I never watch TV - and I think The Gecko wouldn't appear in my country's advertisements). Anyway, this book is filled with wisdom and guide to life by Gecko. And this book is actually quite difficult to review for me; but I'll try my best by showing you some of the interesting things I found in this book ;))

So the book is kind of divided into four chapters: Money, Work, Manners,and  Pie & Chips. Although basically it's just full of random stuff, in my opinion. But even through its' randomness, there are some advice from The Gecko that actually has a really deep meaning - even though most of the time it ended in a sarcastic joke. Before the beginning of the first chapter, there are several pages full of random stuff like: "Catsup" or "Ketchup"?, and The Gecko doesn't agree with both names, he decided to call this sauce, Tomato gravy. Now let's jump to the first part:

The Gecko gives a word of wisdom to the audience about money; and he illustrated it with the story of a squirrel who doesn't save his acorns for a rainy or gusty day. Although most of the things talked about in this chapter doesn't directly relate to money, I found several useful advises that needs to be remembered as we live our lives as human:

"Ignore the Critics.
They're always out there, you know. The critics. The fault-finders. The ones who have only negativity in their hearts. You can't change their behaviour. You can only change how you react to their behaviour.
There is only one proper thing to do, really. Ignore them. Forget they exist."

Another good advice in this chapter is: "There will always be someone taller than you, shorter than you, richer than you, poorer than you, prettier than you, uglier than you, and greener than you (in The Gecko's case)." I absolutely love this quote, because it makes us realize that there will always be people who are better than us; but we have to also realize that we are in some ways better than others too :) This quote is illustrated in a really cute way that I find adorable (image below). It's a comparison between the green celebrities: there's Frankenstein (is he green?), Shrek, Gumby, and the one smaller than Geico Gecko is M&M's mascot, LOL.

Continuing with the next chapter, which is about Work. In the beginning of this chapter, Gecko tells the story how he became the world-famous advertising icon. He started off in the mailroom, and with a pinch of luck, he managed to replace Beauregard the Badger (shown in the image above) and become the new advertising spokesperson. And I quote, "So I guess the lesson here is that with hard work and fortitude, you've no place to go but up." Good words, Gecko. My favorite advice in this chapter has to be:

"Don't be a spork.
The spork is part spoon, part fork, but pretty terrible at doing either job. In other words, be 100 percent you and you'll be the best kind of you you can possibly be."

And it is illustrated with this ridiculously funny drawing of plate running away with spoon and leaving spork behind. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

The third part is about Manners. According to Gecko, the number one thing to remember about manners is be nice to people; and if you burp, say excuse me. I have two favorites in this book, the first one is talking about the use of car horns:

"Car horns are like tails.
Just because you have one, doesn't mean you need to be using it all the time."

I absolutely agree with that! People these days (in my country especially), seems to abuse the use of car horns. They just honk whenever they feel impatient, without considering what's happening to other people. It's just so annoying when we're stuck in traffic and nothing can be done about it, but the car behind us keeps honking like it's our fault. Okay, that's a little bit off topic. And my second favorite quote is:

"Don't act like a baby.
Unless, of course, you are a baby.
Then just keep on doing what you're doing."

The last part is Pie & Chips; which I obviously don't know what it's about - probably about the pleasures of life? And I think my choice of favorites from this part doesn't really talk about that topic. First favorite is the question about convenience stores, which made me thinking as well...

"On convenience stores.
Being the nocturnal creature that I am, I find convenience stores quite... convenient. Although I do often wonder, if they're open 24/7, 365 days a year, why do they have locks?"

I definitely need an answer for that. And my last favorite part consists of words included in "The Proper English Dictionary of Words That You Will Never Use". It includes words like 'defenestrate (dee-fen-uh-streyt)' which means to throw someone out of a window. And Gecko asked 'How often does this happen in daily life?' Does this word actually exists in the dictionary? I didn't check though.

This book is definitely so much fun and it delivers some message to the readers as well. I didn't even included the jokes about the difference between British and American language - because I honestly doesn't even understand them that well. The drawings in this book is actually pretty sloppy, but I think that's the uniqueness of this book - because it's being written and drawn by The Gecko. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although I hoped there would be more messages that leaves a deep impression - so that's why I gave this book a 3 out of 5 rating. I finished this book in one sitting; and if you like to read something light and fun, full of weird illustrations, this book might be able to entertain you ;))

by.stefaniesugia♥ .