• What's Not to Love?

  • The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer
  • By: Jonathan Ames
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Ames
  • Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (47 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
What's Not to Love?  By  cover art

What's Not to Love?

By: Jonathan Ames
Narrated by: Jonathan Ames
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Perhaps all of Jonathan Ames' problems, and the genesis of this hilarious audiobook, can be traced back to the late onset of his puberty. After all, it can't be easy to be 16 with a hairless penis "undistinguishable from that of a five-year-old's".

This wonderfully entertaining memoir is a touching and humorous look at life in New York City. But this is life for an author who can proclaim "my first sexual experience was rather old-fashioned: it was with a prostitute", an author who can talk about his desire to be a model for the Hair Club for Men and about meeting his son for the first time.

Often insightful, sometimes tender, always witty and self-deprecating, What's Not to Love? is an engaging memoir from one of our most funny, most daring writers.

©2000 Jonathan Ames (P)2006 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Ludicrously funny...disconcerting and refreshingly frank." (The Denver Post)
"[What's Not to Love?] soar[s] with Ames' original wit and generous spirit." (Entertainment Weekly)
"Hilarious....[Jonathan Ames has] an unusual ability to take crack-smoking, balding, and Oedipal fixation and whip them up into an elegant, comic meringue." (The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about What's Not to Love?

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    21
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

not worth the download

Interesting to see the world through the eyes of a pervert. He does tell you he is a pervert, and does not lie. If you cannot share his view, I wouldn't recommend the book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

3 Star Writing, -1 Star Reading

This book was not for me. Taken individually, some of these articles might have been interesting. Collected like this, though, they're repetitive and boring, the rare chuckles oases of entertainment in a desert of dullness. Also, perhaps some of this material was edgy when the stories were first published, but now they're bland. It's tepidness even appears in the subtitle, "Mildly Perverted." Who wants to waste eight and a half hours on mildness?

Certainly not the author, because his read sounds like he's not even interested in his own work. He takes the pan out of deadpan.

You might consider buying the print book and reading it in small portions over a long time, but I cannot recommend this audio version.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Worst book ever!

Not wasting any more time with this one. Absolutely the worst book I ever purchased!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Truth and Fidelity

Ames convinces us that redemption comes through absolute truth and fidelity to language. I don’t believe there is a better writer and somehow Ames has created a style through this memoir and his novels that is new and unique. I’m not smart enough to name it or classify it but I suspect that it’s true. Convince me that I’m wrong and that there is another like him please.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!