Review – How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack by Chuck Sambuchino (3.5/5 stars)

I got an advanced reading copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program.  It was just too funny to pass up.  I mean I have read Zombie survival guides, werewolf survival guides; but a guide to survive those vicious garden gnomes!?  How cool is that.

This book goes through a step by step process on how to defend yourself from garden gnomes.  It starts with how to assess if you are at risk and how to determine if garden gnomes have infested your property.  Then it goes on to inform the reader on how to protect their house against garden gnome invasion and how to defend yourself should those little ceramic bundles of terror breech your house.  There are even a couple short “real-life” stories of gnome attack survivors.

This book was amusing.  I laughed a couple times out-loud and snorted a few more times.  This would be a good joke gift or something to buy just for the plain strangeness of having it.  It is not much more than a joke book though.  Luckily it is short and doesn’t take itself too seriously, so it has that going for it.

Some parts of the book are truly funny; especially when the book goes through weapon recommendations (flame thrower – not recommenced).  There are wonderful pictures of gnomes wielding dangerous objects or gnomes sneaking into houses that are cute and humorous…and just a tad creepy.  Other parts of the book are kind of repetitive and made my eyes roll.

To be honest I was expecting a bit more from this book.  A bit more creativity and a bit more humor.  Don’t get me wrong there are some funny parts in here, but most of the recommendations are pretty simple and common sense type things.  The funniest part was really the concept of this book and some of the pictures in it.

Overall it’s pretty funny and might make a good coffee table book.  It is incredibly short, but that works in this book’s favor…I think any more would have been too much.  If you are expecting a light and slightly amusing read you won’t be disappointed, just don’t expect anything too crazily clever or in depth.

This book goes towards the following reading challenge:
– The 100+ Book Reading Challenge