Such a nice guy, not such a nice book. Ok, maybe that is too harsh. So shall I say it was cute? Probably not the adjective the author portraying a macho 40+ singles-scene memoir wants to hear, but as they say, if the shoe fits....

I felt the author, was trying too hard to be funny, by making light of his dating life after being divorced. The nice thing about the book was that each chapter was only 1-3 pages long. This made it my bathroom read. Unfortunately it still took months to get through. Not the best read so far this year. ( )

I got this book for free from this site and I did review it after reading it. I accidentally deleted my reviews, and since I accepted the book on the condition that I review, I'll try to remember the original review. I thought this book was going to a funny, interesting observation about a guy and the up and downs of the dating world. Instead, it's a whiny, smug collection of stories that bring to mind the type of boy in junior high that was arrogant and not well-liked. Mr. Torcivia refers to himself in the third person, seems to be a little homophobic and could probably benefit from a good bit of therapy (or at least a visit to Dr. Phil). I couldn't recommend this book to anyone, and while I always appreciate a free book, after reading it I still think I overpaid.

SUCH A NICE GUY by Phil Torcivia

I wanted to like this self-published collection of essays because I got it directly from the author through member giveaway. Unfortunately, I came away with a less-than positive opinion of it.

I’ll start with the one positive. Torcivia’s writing style is direct, clear, and uncluttered. His writing doesn’t get in the way of , or distract from what he is saying. That’s not easy to do. There are published authors, being paid for their work, who don’t do it as well.

The overwhelming majority of his essays, musings if you will, focus on relationships between men and women. Torcivia says he’s pushing fifty. Clearly his life experiences reflect that, but his views seem to be those of a much younger man. That would not necessarily be a problem, but in this case “younger” seems synonymous with “immature.” I’m not saying Torcivia is immature, just that his views seem that way. It is equally clear that he is intelligent. The way he states his opinions may well be shaped by his desire to be funny. Maybe if you were in a bar talking with him, getting the benefit of his body language, tone, personality, his words would be funny. But, on the cold page, they’re not. Not to me anyway. His humor is raunchy. It doesn’t offend me, I’m fifty-nine, so little offends me, but at best I find some of it mildly amusing. Hormone-flooded, late teens to late twenties men might find this book hilarious.

Torcivia is better when he’s being serious. Actually, semi-serious is about as far as he goes. When he reveals glimpses of real feelings he begins to capture my attention. “She said she was happy, very sadly,” was one such essay. Here’s an example of the humor from an essay entitled “Random Things About Me”: “I was contracted to knock down the Berlin Wall, with my penis.” Or: “Paris Hilton left my hotel room smiling, and limping.” If you find this funny, buy the book. If you don’t ….

My advice to Phil Torcivia, not that he’d likely want it, is to write what you really feel, don’t try to be funny, just let it be if it wants to, and there’s a good chance you could write a book that is the equal of your writing style. ( )

Mr. Torcivia has produced a collection of short studies on the life and times of a post forty divorced male. The pieces are of a humorous bent but he does veer serious at times.

I found several of his stories to be quite funny and one or two to be thought provoking. However, this is not a heavy weight book. The author will go for the laugh every time.

He works hard at trying to portray the problems of a basically nice fellow who still wants to enjoy the company of women. At times he works a little too hard in my opinion. He also occasionally falls into the gap between tasteful and outrageous.

But all in all it was a fun book, a quick read and you do not come away with any sense of time wasted. I would recommend it for light reading or a gift for a guy who reads. One note of warning some may feel that the author leans a bit toward homophobia. I read it as locker room humor myself, but I would avoid passing it on to someone who might be twitchy about that sort of thing.

A copy of this book was provided free by for the purposes of this review. ( )