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Title: It's not all about the presents, Stanley!
Review: You know how you feel when you eat that muffin or cookie that looks really good, but ends up being dry, tasteless, and a complete waste of calories? And you keep eating it because it's there, and it might improve (but never does)? That's how it felt to me to buy and read this book. It had so much potential. The title is great. The story is real. But it's poorly written, by an annoyingly arrogant and apparently editor-less man. His clinical writing (he seems to be writing a legal brief for most of the book) fails to convey the terror he must have felt. The last half of the book is particularly grueling, and the "lessons learned" are juvenile and materialistic (Oh, Stanley, a Cabrio??). Being kidnapped was probably the best thing ever to happen to Stanley. Too bad the experience didn't effect the change he seems to think it did (or result in the great read it could have).
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