First, the title tells all: If you have issues with the F-bomb peppering every other sentence, along with lots of other coarse language, this book will be unreadable for you.

Okay, still here?
Well, it started out gangbusters. Really good, interesting, different.

By the end, however, I was pretty weary of the guy, and I kept thinking, "Gosh, he is SO young." Things he breathlessly reveals about Life seem pretty obvious to me (at over sixty years in).

And I think they also would be to anyone who has ever had even a passing flirtation with Buddhism, especially Zen.

Still, his anecdotes, when not grating with a weirdly self-deprecating egotism ("Let me tell you some MORE ways that I used to be an asshole..") are fresh, sometimes surprising, and often instructive.

It especially might be of interest to people in the counseling or other therapeutic professions, since he does a wonderful job of shredding pop-culture self-help wisdom.

(Or you might want to secretly leave a copy on the doorstop of your favorite pity-party enthusiast).

Along those lines, I liked "If You Meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him," by Sheldon Kopp better. Or "Be Here Now," for that matter.

So, my take was that it's pretty good, but by the ending ("And Then You Die"), I rather felt the book had, too.