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Product Description
Review
"There have been spoof letter-writing books in the past, like The Lazlo Letters by Don Novello (a.k.a. Father Guido Sarducci) and several that followed. While [this] protagonist in is just as unhinged as his predecessors, he's significantly less giddy. A real story unfolds in these pages, about a departed brother and the sibling left behind. It's sad and fragmented and, in places, funny. This slender epistolary novel is charming." —Los Angeles Times Jacket Copy online
"Unlike anything you've ever read. Each of Joey Comeau’s letters comments, sometimes subtley, sometimes not, on the emptiness of the system . . . while it simultaneously reveals the humor, beauty, and pain that is all else in life." —About.com
"A sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-crushingly sad romp through a man’s swelling nihilism and disenchantment. —MonstersAndCritics.com
"A collection of wry, clever and demoniacal job-application letters, teeming with knife-edged malice and stomach-tearing hilarity . . . Successfully deludes the fear of the faceless corporate entity by empowering the faceless applicant." —Globe and Mail
"Joey Comeau's collection of real cover letters, Overqualified, is pretty much sui generis. Not to mention sweetly written, bitter and bitterly funny . . . One of the season's most remarkable books." —Macleans.ca
"Overqualified's cover letters are like a slap in the face, but the slap is hilarious, and you can't stop laughing, and as soon as it's over you want to tell all your friends about the slap. You know the kind?" —Ryan North, Dinosaur Comics
"Joey Comeau's Overqualified is Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret as chewed up and spit out by J. G. Ballard. . . . A book whose melancholy is leavened by a surprising hilarity." —Paul Di Filippo, author, The Steampunk Triology and Cosmocopia
"Joey Comeau has made the unreadable not just readable, but beguiling in its digressions and personal revelations." —Eye Magazine
Product Description
Cover letters are all the same. They're useless. You write the same lies over and over again, listing the store-bought parts of yourself that you respect the least. God knows how they tell anyone apart, but this is how it's done.
And then one day a car comes out of nowhere, and suddenly everything changes and you don't know if he'll ever wake up. You get out of bed in the morning, and when you sit down to write another paint-by-numbers cover letter, something entirely different comes out.
You start threatening instead of begging. You tell impolite jokes. You talk about your childhood and your sexual fantasies. You sign your real name and you put yourself honestly into letter after letter and there is no way you are ever going to get this job. Not with a letter like this.
And you send it anyway.
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
I've realized I'm in love with Joey Comeau.,
By K. Ketz "obsessed with read books like an ex-... (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Overqualified (Paperback)
I'm not sure what Overqualified is. Is it a broken up autobiography? What's true? Are these real cover letters? Did he really send them all in the mail to the companies they're addressed to? I don't know. But I'm pretty sure of one thing, that I'm in love with Joey Comeau. After loyally checking the asofterworld webcomic for, a few years?, and now after reading the deep, embarrassingly personal letters in Overqualified, I feel like I know Joey. I feel like we share something, that we're long lost friends. As I hold the thin book in my hands, I trail my index finger across the textured pages, up and down, only slightly aware of the fact that I'm jealous of Joey's girlfriend Susan I keep reading about. Jealous of how much he loves her but at the same time wanting to be one of the anonymous women he wants to tell strange jokes to in bed, to surprise him during sex. I'm only slightly aware that I'm sad reading through his loss and nostalgia, because even as the pages seep with pain there is a type of light-hearted, silly narration that shows each dark polaroid as truly comical. I want to make up one of Joey's cards, the one with the glass covered butterfly, and send it to him on International Stalker Day. I want to read Overqualified again and this time when I close it not feel so empty and uncertain about my own life. Maybe that's why I've convinced myself I'm in love with Joey Comeau? Because if I profess my love, stalk him and maybe one day actually meet him, I'll really just slam Overqualified down on the table and ask him, what is this really about? What did you leave out? I want more.A painfully funny collection of thoughts and memories that force you to question your own motives in life, your own conceptions of morality, success and love, Overqualified is a short, addictive read that leaves you wanting more of Joey Comeau; despite blushing throughout the book because he went ahead and drank too much on your date and told you more than you ever needed to know... or not enough?
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read (especially if you love sarcasm!),
This review is from: Overqualified (Paperback)
This is hilarious, plain and simple.If you don't laugh then you have no sense of humor and aren't human! I think all of us have had similar inner monologues from time to time.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (37 customer reviews) 78 of 84 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Right before I purchased this book Joey Comeau stared at me intensely for 10 seconds.,
By JFoz - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Overqualified (Paperback)
It was unrelated to the purchase, somebody was taking a picture of him, and he did not want to look at the camera I think. I stared back, not wanting to be the one to break eye contact. Like Joey had thrown out some unspoken dare and I didn't want to disappoint him. Halfway through he gave me a little wave, as if to say it would be all right, that it was almost over.Overqualified is a lot like that. Each letter is funny and amazingly written, but it shows you a glimpse of something darker. It chokes you up a bit. It makes you want to call up your brother and see how he's doing. Makes you want to put the book down, but it also makes you want to keep reading, so as not to disappoint Joey. 38 of 40 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful.,
By Arienette - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Overqualified (Paperback)
And by beautiful, I mean Joey Comeau. Overqualified is such a wonderful, insightful, heartbreaking, hilarious, and familiar book that with every page I read, even everytime I wander past it while it sits gloriously on my nightstand, I have an incredible urge to just take my pants off. Sometimes I can't resist. When I say sometimes, I mean everytime. Right now, I know you may be thinking I'm a crazy person and that this book is only for crazy people or for people whose aspirations are to someday be crazy, but my friend, you are so very wrong. Once you read Overqualified, you will know. You will be pantsless and you will also know what I mean. Buy it. Don't ask, just do it.
40 of 44 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read this book to your boyfriend and he will never leave you.,
By Rachel Popham "liberating the piano" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Overqualified (Paperback)
A dear friend of mine once told me that there are only four possible endings to a fight that indicate a successful argument:1. The feeling that you won't need to have the same fight again in the near future 2. Makeouts or their equivalent had 3. Objects thrown and shattered, preferably against other shattering objects 4. Sudden absurd laughter Joey Comeau's book has only questionable success at best with regard to #1, but blows the other three away so thoroughly that I have to admit Overqualified is the most successful fight I've ever read. |
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