The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

I shall start this post by saying that only 1 out of 4 of us finished this book (and we think she cheated by listening to it on audio book :-)), so that speaks volumes.

A few of us had read some of Bryson's other books so his writing style isn't totally to blame on why we just didn't like this book.  It was mostly to do with the reminiscing about America in the 1950s, something we couldn't relate to at all and the fact that not much happens, but what should we have expected from an auto-biography?  It's a list of anecdotes, some of which are amusing, some of which I think you had to be there (or alive in 1950s America) to appreciate.  It just didn't do it for us.

Concept: 5 (an auto-biography is an OK concept)
Plot: n/a (we don't think this is applicable to biographies)
Ending: 2
Cover: 4
Page Turner: 2 (see my above comment on how many of us finished it)
Who to slap?  Bill Bryson (of course)
Where's the cheese?  The thunderbolt kid, the link between the name and Bryson is tenuous at best.
Would we recommend? 0/4
Better as a ... TV documentary about 1950s America.

Total: 3/10

Our next two books will be:

For February: Last Orders by Graham Swift
For March: After the Party by Lisa Jewell