Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin by Paul Feig

Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin Reviews

• 
  Yvonne

  I didn't much care for this book. It sat in my gym bag for 3 months and became my desperation book. Like, if I couldn't get a treadmill with a TV or I'd run out of magazines or something.
  
  There were 2 amazing passages that I need to share:
  
  The surrounding tables were filled with large older men who looked like they had all served in some arm of the military during World War II, and i could feel their eyes burning into me as they wondered who the faggy nineteen-year-old guy having dinner with his mother and weeping uncontrollably was" (p. 212).
  
  In reference to the sound of his mother crying: "a high-pitched wail that broke my heart and also made me want to throw her out of the car" (p. 217).
• 
  David Piwinski

  When I said I wanted to read more non-fiction this year, an account of the sexual failures of some guy I've never really heard of before wasn't exactly what I had in mind. However, I'm glad I read this one (thanks Julie!) because it's really fucking hilarious.
  
  Paul Feig takes us through his adolescent love life, from first discovering how to masturbate up to losing his virginity at age 24. Most of the stuff in here is so horrifying and embarrassing that most people would never even admit to it, much less publish it in book form, but luckily Mr. Feig seems to have no shame, describing in mortifying detail his first real kiss, first real date, and the time he almost broke his neck trying to fellate himself.
  
  Much of the book's comedy comes from what a tremendous loser this guy was. I mean, everyone's teenage years were full of awkward moments and angst, and I think most guys will find something familiar about these stories, but at the same time Feig takes that element of awkwardness and elevates it into such cringe-worthy lameness that it will make even the dorkiest high school experience seem cool in comparison. Basically, if you had a hard time with your early dating life, read this book and it will make you feel a thousand times better.
  
  This is a very funny book, and while I can't say I really learned anything (at least, anything I wanted to know), it was still definitely worth reading and I recommend checking it out it you're looking for a quick, funny read.
• 
  Giddy Girlie

  I am not a fan of Freaks and Geeks (I think I came to it too old, sort of like reading Catcher in the Rye at 30: it's good, but doesn't resonate quite the same), but I like what Paul Feig has done, so I was expecting this book to be a rip-roaring tale of midwest teenagerdom. And it was, except there's no real rip-roaring part. The stories when related are funny, but on the page they're pretty flat. Way too verbose to set up a good punchline delivery, they just sort of meander for 30 pages to ultimately say something sort of small (i.e., "I was too religious/immature/nervous to have sex, so the girl dumped me."). The final chapter, which is the "payoff" to the whole book, is written like the bible which should lend humor except that it goes on too long, once again, so the novelty wears off fast (I ended up skipping something like 10 pages and not missing a single detail).
  
  This book would make for great party banter and there are a lot of pieces that are familiar from the Freaks & Geeks (and Undeclared) series are funny, but on the whole it was a little windy.
  
  Sorry, Paul Feig. Maybe you should turn some of this fodder into a stand-up act or a one-man show. THAT could be hilarious.
• 
  Christopher Williams

  As someone who started to experience sexual intimacy at a later date this was a charming and relatable read! Intimacy is weird but it's fun! Like life! Cute book!
• 
  Stephanie

  Having spent a hell of a lot of money on books and exhausted my Paperbackswap.com credits (join that, BTW), I turned to the library for the first time since I moved here and picked this up on my way out. Basically, always having something to read on the subway is of utmost importance to me, even moreso than having batteries for my headphones.
  
  Anyway -- holy shit. More than once on the subway while reading this, I:
  
  a) gasped for air from laughing so hard
  b) inadvertently cried out things like "oh NO, Paul!"
  c) said stuff like "oh my god, there is no way...there is absolutely no way" while covering my mouth too late to assuage concerns from fellow riders that I was not, in fact, crazy
  
  Um. This is amazing. This is hilarious. Feig reveals EVERYTHING about his embarrassing past - almost (but not quite) uncomfortably so. I am not using hyperbole when I say this is probably the best read I've come across in the past year. It came out a few years ago and isn't new, so if you're a hardcore Freaks & Geeks Feig superfan, you've probably come across this already, but if not, go find and read this immediately.
  
  Too bad I have to return this. I'm finding a copy of my own stat.
• 
  Samantha Glasser

  I knew of Paul Feig through his role as Mr. Poole in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and then later as a writer for Freaks and Geeks. When I discovered that many of the situations in Freaks and Geeks were based on Feig's life experiences, I wanted to read this book.
  
  While he mentioned a few things that conjure memories of the show, this book is a bit racier, filled with sex anecdotes (many of them involving only Feig). His sense of humor permeates the stories, and his penchant for self-humiliation knows no bounds. He even offers transcripts of some of his diaries and comments on them.
  
  I really enjoyed the honesty of this book, and it gave me a lot of laughs.
• 
  sarah

  good if you like nerds, leisure suits, and being disappointed by books you think are going to be hilarious.
• 
  Sarah B.

  I wanted to love this book! I consider Freaks and Geeks to be one of the best things that ever happened on television. And yet this book was so problematic for me. How, you might wonder, could you mess up a book about how awkward you were as a horny teenager?
  
  First of all, it's really hard to sell an antihero. Adult Feig is aware of just how much of a loser teenage Feig was, and he still has to write a whole book about him that people will want to read. For me, he fell short of this goal. The book was amusing, but teenage Feig was not a charming person, and so the book lacked charm. So, whenever he criticized someone other than himself, it got really iffy for me. For example:
  

  I picked her up at her house and was on my best behavior, putting on no airs other than wearing a suit and tie with a tie bar that held my collar together and pushed the knot up and out in a jaunty GQ fashion. Nicole looked quite pretty in flattering makeup and a frilly dress that was about knee length. Unfortunately, she was wearing the kind of shoes that I've always found to be the least attractive things a woman can put on her feet, those sort of half-heel white dress sandals that, when worn in conjunction with flesh-colored "sandal-toe" stockings, make any female's feet look like they should be attached to someone's grandma. But I forced myself to overlook her geriatric footwear and felt happy that she was going out with me. [p. 132]

  
  Harsh! I know it's for comedic effect, but every time he takes a break from describing his own painfully nerdy self to write about a flaw in a fellow teenager (also, it was the 80s), it jars. He gives us exactly zero reasons for why anyone would want to date teenage Feig, and at the same time he makes every story about how much he wants to date the most beautiful girls in his life and how disappointed he is that they don't want feel the same way about him. The incongruity is supposed to be funny, but it's a tough read when you find yourself sympathizing with the beautiful but unattainable girls and the deeply flawed but game girls — and not with Feig.
  
  The book bounces between "look how hopelessly awkward I was" and "I was such a Nice Guy I was willing to put up with how badly girls were treating me". But you know what? He wasn't a nice guy. Here are the reasons he gives for wanted to date the girls he pursued:
  

  • She was so popular he knew everyone would think he was an amazing guy and be sooooo jealous
  • She had bigger breasts than all the other girls in school (really, he can't see her as anything but a great rack until she puts on a jean jacket and he accidentally starts to get to know her)
  • She was beautiful and/or his "type"

  
  Each time, he is completely focused on what he will get out of the relationship and completely oblivious to what the girl in question might be thinking or feeling. Each of them has something he wants, and he is frustrated because he can't get it from her. At the same time, he seems to believe that all she needs to be fulfilled by a relationship is superficial gifts. So he has nothing meaningful to offer her, and yet the theme continues to be poor Paul just can't catch a break.
  
  Part of the premise of this book is that he just doesn't know what girls really want, because GIRLS, amiright? I'm going to posit that it's not that difficult to figure girls out, but you do have to assume that they have feelings and desires for things other than red roses, concert tickets, and dinners at expensive restaurants. I know teenage Feig thinks he can buy meaningful, loving companionship with flashy dates, but I wanted the book to acknowledge that this belief was part of his teenage folly. Instead, we come away with his puzzlement over his failures intact. Frustrating.
  
  I think most of the book's problems would have been solved if adult Feig had shown more compassion for the girls teenage Feig inflicted himself upon. He could have tried to see what it must have been like for them to date teenage Feig, but instead he gives us ugly shoes, or worst kisser ever, or too sexually aggressive, or toyed with his emotions. Yes, teenage Feig wanted to effortlessly walk into some sort of cheesy Hallmark movie romance, but adult Feig should know that teenage Feig had no right to be disappointed that these girls were just as flawed as he was. Instead, it feels like he has forgiven himself, but not them.
  
  Let's talk about that forgiveness. Feig comes closest to a revelation late in the book when he has finally realized that Maura is never going to date him. He writes:
  

  I tried to feel mad at her for the rest of the trip, but I just didn't have the energy. And I realized that I didn't have a good case against her. After all, she hadn't lied to me when she told me at the end of the summer that she'd be there when I got back. She indeed was there when I returned, and thanks to her presence, I ended up eating a food-poisoned hoagie from a place I would never have gone to if she hadn't invited me to go there in the first place. But it was my fault for never asking her point-blank at any time during the past four months if she had any real feelings for me and, more important, if she had any intentions of ever breaking up with Matt. I chose, as always, to avoid hearing anything potentially negative, hoping that everything would work itself out with no effort on my behalf whatsoever. And, of course, it didn't. When does it ever? If you want something in life, you have to at least expend a little energy and inquiry on it, right? [p. 249]

  
  He's on the verge of insight, finally willing to see his failures as more than just tough breaks, as something he may have contributed to. But his passive-aggressive lashing out at the girl in question shows he still hasn't forgiven her (come on, she did not deliberately arrange the get-together at a sandwich shop with salmonella issues). He was messed up, and he got treated badly, but it never occurs to him to ask what might have been going on with Maura to make her so cruel. It literally never occurs to him that she was also messed up, or that she had similar issues. The whole book consists of Paul wanting sex, and girls not giving it to him the way he wants. He never stops to think what sex means to them. So it never occurs to him that Nicole's sexual aggressiveness might be her form of concert tickets or expensive dinners, that she mistakenly thinks he expects that from her in exchange for companionship, or that she just has really messed-up ideas about boys. It's just so one-sided.
  
  Like I said, antiheroes are difficult characters to pull off.
  
  In the end, he is redeemed by getting married. That's it. He doesn't learn about his own intentions and their effect on the people he is trying to date. He gets better at the sex, but he doesn't tell us he got any better at relating. In effect, he just eventually catches his break. I'm happy it worked out for him, and I'm happy he can laugh at his teenage self. I wish I felt like he was a better person for all his experiences, but I don't.
• 
  Malcolm Frawley

  I found this coming of age memoir, by film-maker, Paul Feig, extremely enjoyable. His vignettes have a universal appeal as I believe many, if not most of, us have endured similar experiences. He is refreshingly candid about his own shortcomings & his wit & eye for comedy are obvious throughout. A lot of fun that is occasionally tempered by tender moments.
• 
  Clint

  Writer/director Paul Feig follows up a 2002 memoir of growing up as a geek with a 2005 second memoir of his misadventures trying to find a girlfriend. Those who had regular libidos but felt limited by their faith (and their "game" with the opposite sex) will relate to Feig.
• 
  Nancy Dunham

  What a sweet, coming of age book. The author’s voice is incredibly compelling and his honesty ... wow! Loved it.
• 
  chi

  4.6
• 
  Donna

  3.5 stars, not as funny as Kick Me, but just as painfully real.
• 
  Andrea

  Dire.
• 
  Anna

  Not as good as Kick Me, but still pretty funny. There is some outdated language used.
• 
  Chris

  So if you've read the first one then you know just how funny Paul Feig is as a writer. He can make you laugh with the most embarrassing situations around. If you thought the first book was hilarious then you will love his second book. It does have a few of the same stories from the first but now copied and pasted into this one, just written with more information and detail.
  
  I'm not sure if I could have handled living the life he did growing up. I mean he experienced it all that most people don't want to remember about their years in school. It wasn't just the periods of not knowing what to do in some situations, which turned out to be a lot, but I think it also shows that if you really make your kids believe all these religions dos and don'ts, they will go crazy trying to figure out everything and every encounter they have in life. Just look at Paul Feig, every situation he encountered he always went back to his faith to figure out what to do, and each and every time, he was let down about what to do.
  
  If you had a rough childhood growing up because it was hard to relate to other kids then you need to read this book because nothing could be as bad as what he went through. I think because of all that pain and sorrow that he experienced he was able to give us a TV show that so many can relate to and for what we thank him.
  
  If you've never seen his shows, "Freaks and Geeks," it is a show you need to watch. If you have kids in high school, get it for them and let them enjoy it. It really is a great show and it shows that without experience and failure to teach you what you need to know in life, you won't be able to give back to others what you've learned. So if you don't have time to read his books, which you should make time, go and watch the show, it's basically his life on TV.
  
  Enjoy! I know I did and laughed very hard in the process.
• 
  Joyce

  Superstud is super entertaining. Loved it. Summary: Lost in love and don't know much? Paul Feig knew even less...
  
  Like any other red-blooded, straight young man, Paul Feig spent much of his teenage years trying to solve the mystery of women. Unlike most red-blooded, straight teenage boys, however, Paul Feig was sadly at a considerable disadvantage. He was tall and gangly. He had a love for musical theater. And, perhaps the death knell for his burgeoning sex life, Paul was a tap dance student. (And we have the pictures to prove it—see the front cover.)
  
  Infused with the same witty and infectiously readable style of his first book, Kick Me, Superstud chronicles the trials and tribulations of Feig’s young dating life with all the same excruciating detail as an on-air gastric bypass—and you just won’t be able to tear yourself away. Feig’s series of shudder-to-think but oddly familiar (come on—we’ve all been dumped by someone we didn’t even like that much) anecdotes include: his first date, at an REO Speedwagon concert with the most endowed girl in school, who leaves him sitting next to a puddle of puke; his first breakup, accomplished by moving across the country; his mortifying date with his secretly bigoted girlfriend; his discovery of a new self-love technique that almost lands him in the hospital; and his less-than-idealistic “first time,” which he nevertheless elevates to biblical proportions.
  
  In Superstud, Paul Feig tells all in a hilarious but true testament to geekdom, love, and growing up.
• 
  Emily Ann Meyer

  My brother gave this to me for my birthday a few years ago, because I'm such a fan of Freaks & Geeks which was co-created by this author. Grabbed it off the shelf at random the other night to have something to read in the tub. Was a relatively quick read -- all personal recollections of the type of thing that seems monumentally horrendous at the time and only with the eye of distance and maturity can become funny.
  
  Don't know if it was a generational thing (he's about 10 or so years older than I), or a gender thing - it was funny enough and enjoyable, but as far as self-depricating memoirs go, I prefer Laurie Notaro. That said, ending the book (which detailed his dating ineptitudes and guilt about sex due to his Christian Scientist upbrining) by writing about losing his virginity in the form of a Bible chapter was an inspired bit of irony.
  
  I've heard this isn't quite as good as "Kick Me," which is also on my list, so I've got hopes for that one, too.
• 
  Rebecca

  I've liked Paul Feig for a long time. Embarrassingly enough, he hooked me with his mid 90's 1-2 punch of appearing on Joel Hodgeson's TV Wheel and his thrilling turn as Mr.Pool on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Now who's the geek, Mr. Feig?
  Anyway, this is a pretty funny book. I laughed out loud a couple times, I think I read it in only a few days, and I roommate asked to borrow it. My favorite part of the book is when he feels duped by God and says "How could He do that to me? What an Asshole."
  Also, when you read the book and he advises you to skip the chapter near the end, do it. Seriously. Don't read that chapter. It is highly disconcerting. But I guess it's also wonderful and refreshing that he would reveal something so embarrassing and horrifying about himself. So, I guess, you should read it. But just remember this, you can never unread it.
• 
  Emily

  This book was painful at times, sometimes because of the awful situations young Paul Feig finds himself in, other times because of the writing. It's not that Feig is a terrible writer (obviously he's a genius, he wrote Freaks and Geeks!) he just spends way to much of the book over-explaining the embarrassing events of his young adulthood and verbally cringing at them. The stories speak for themselves Paul! But at the same time, he is sharing some humiliating stuff, I'm pretty sure most people would want to over-explain stories from their adolescence, if they even had the courage to share them at all!
  
  I did love that I could find bits and pieces from Paul's life that made their way into Freaks and Geeks. Some of the details in the show are just way too good to have been made up!
• 
  Nat Newton

  This is a real-life coming-of-age memoir by one of my favorite TV writer/directors, Paul Feig of (most notably) "Freaks and Geeks"/"Arrested Development"/"The Office" fame.
  
  This tale kept me genuinely mesmerized with this poor kid's trials and tribulations he was faced with growing up a horny geek with religious parents, which he retold in an amusing, yet genuinely sympathy-envoking, self-deprecating way.
  
  You've gotta give the man credit, for not only writing a hilarious account of blossoming sexuality that we can all relate to on some level (although I'm guessing the guys can relate to it a little more), but for so honestly parting with some of his deepest, darkest secrets (some of which will really take you by surprise), not to mention that oh-so-embarrassing photo on the cover.
  
  Loved this book. Truly funny, touching, and compelling.
  
• 
  Nicole M. Lilly Rawson

  I don't remember how I found this book and I had no idea who Paul Feig was but luckily because of this book he is now one of my favorite TV/movie people. It's hands down the funniest book I have ever read. I often had to avoid reading it in public in order not to look like a maniac laughing hysterically to myself. Warning, it's *very* sexually explicit.
  
  It seems like a lot of reviews here talk about how shallow and selfish Feig is in this book, which causes a lot of second hand embarrassment for them as a reader. I only found his behavior add to the humor. Clearly Feig is a different person now and is vividly aware of his huge foibles as a teen and young adult. He WANTS you to laugh at what a weirdo/dick he was. That's the whole point of the book. Most of us probably could say the same about our adolescent behavior.
• 
  Jessica

  
  Paul Feig is one of the people behind Freaks and Geeks, and if you've seen the show, you'll have a pretty good idea of what you're in for in his books. They're funny and lighthearted memoirs from the author's adolescence, and a lot of the anecdotes were actually turned more or less verbatim into scenes or plot lines in Freaks and Geeks. I think Kick Me is superior to
  Superstud, but they both have plenty of funny moments; Superstud just loses points because it gets a little too melodramatic and/or TMI in the last few sections.
• 
  Jennifer

  Paul Feig is incredibly honest about all the amazingly embarrassing things he's done in his life in the pursuit of love and sexual gratification. His memoir is very funny, sweet, and should probably be mandatory reading for all lonely teenage boys who masturbate too much so they can know they are not alone. It's also a fun read for fans of the show Freaks and Geeks , which Feig created. Some moments from the show were clearly lifted straight from his life, and he knows how to turn his adolescent pain into funny and real stories.
• 
  HeavyReader

  I recently watched all 18 episodes of Freaks and Geeks and enjoyed the series a lot. I was awfully excited when I stumbled across this book by the creator of Freaks and Geeks while looking for an ILL book on sex and love later in life.
  
  Now, I would not say that Paul Feig is the straight David Sedaris. He's not even Augusten Burroughs. But I did enjoy this book. It made me laugh out loud, especially the chapter the author begs the reader not to read.
  
  I read this book while I was in immense pain from a mysterious arm injury, and it sure did the trick of distracting me.
• 
  K

  I picked up this memoir of romantic and sexual failure because it was written by Paul Feig, creator of Freaks & Geeks and director of episodes of the Office, Mad Men, and 30 Rock. The humor turned out to be much more broad and neurotically obsessive than any of those TV shows. And less laugh-inducing. Kind of like Portnoy's Complaint, with even MORE discussion of masturbation, if you can believe it. Also, Paul Feig grew up a Christian Scientist in Michigan vs. a Jewish boy in New Jersey.