Wisner, Franz "How the World Makes Love"

Wisner, Franz "How the World Makes Love: And What It Taught a Jilted Groom" - 2009

This was the worst read this year, probably of the last couple of years. Two facts should have warned me. 1. There is hardly any information available about the book or the author. 2. The bright colours on the title, it usually wants to make up for the lack of something, most often the author's brain. But I try to give every book a chance.

I tried to find the humour advertised. Sorry, couldn't find any, I just was too bored. Information - even inspiration? Nothing new or elaborate. There are dozens of other good travel books around.

I did find quite a few mistakes in the book, assumptions he just made but were not exactly correct, that was another spoiler. Towards the end I thought there might be people who could like this book, if they want just a brief outlook on life somewhere else. It grew more and more into a threepenny (or dime) novel. When I went through the annex, I found several books he mentioned as his sources, for example, in Egypt I found he had rewritten "The Yakoubian Building". Quite a few of our members had either been to the places he talked about or even lived there for a while, nobody could find anything remotely interesting.

His writing style was awful, he didn't seem to be able to concentrate, stay with the topic. The whole story was rather shallow, flippant, superficial, poorly written. Someone even called it icky. He seemed to talk the whole time about his first book where his bride left him at the altar and I guess if I had read that one, this sequel would have even been more boring. My conclusion: Chick Lit at its worst!!!

The only people who liked it wanted a "lighter read". Granted, some people might enjoy this when on holidays but there is nothing to talk about in a book club.

One last comment, one of our members mentioned it reminded her of Woody Allen who once said he took a speed reading course and read "War and Peace" in twenty minutes. On questioned about it, he said "It involves Russia". So, he missed out on a fantastic read. That's about the impression this guy gives you.

We discussed this in our book club in June 2010.

From the back cover:
"The bestselling author of Honeymoon with My Brother hits the road again to learn about love and finally finds it closer to home.

When you've been jilted at the altar and forced to take your pre-paid honeymoon with your brother, it's fair to say you could learn a thing or two about love. And that's what Franz Wisner sets out to do 'traveling the globe with a mission: to discover the planet's most important love lessons and see if they can rescue him from the ruins of his own love life'. Even after months on the road, he's still not sure he's found the secret. But a disastrous date with a Los Angeles actress and single mom keeps popping into Franz's head. While researching ideal love, could he have missed a bigger truth: that something unplanned and implausible could actually make him happy?

Uproarious, tender, and studded with eye-opening insights on love, How the World Makes Love'is the story of one average man's search for happinessa search that turns into an improbable love story in the author's own backyard."