Amy Newmark

In a Nutshell: Exactly as the title and blurb promise. Feel-good stories that make you laugh—sometimes with others and sometimes at others—without guilt. Add in some excellent quotes and you have a lovely family-friendly package.

You might surely have heard of the Chicken Soup series. The latest addition to the plethora of ‘Chicken Soup’ titles is this amazing collection. The book follows the traditional Chicken Soup format of collecting real-life anecdotes by theme, and show more interspersing them with suitable quotes. The theme this time is the misadventures and mishaps of everyday life.

As one of the quotes in the book says, “Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.” (credit: Mel Brooks.) You have surely gone through at least a few embarrassing incidents and regrettable life choices. Maybe you can laugh at the cringe-worthy memories today, but while actually going through the incident, you must have wanted the earth to open and swallow you up whole. Well, this book will tell you that you aren’t alone.

This collection brings together plenty of anecdotes contributed by Chicken Soup readers, with every tale highlighting some truly embarrassing or funny moment in the life of the narrator. The stories range from animal/pet adventures to spousal struggles to pranks gone wrong to festive mishaps. Some made me feel sorry for the narrators, but most made me laugh. A few were so painful while being funny that I even felt guilty at laughing, though admittedly, the guilt didn’t stop me from chuckling hard. Only a few left me feeling meh.

Laughing at yourself is the best medicine, and that is the spirit inculcated by most of these writers. If ever you want a feel-good anecdotal collection, this would be perfect. Before every anecdote is a quote. Most quotes were excellent!

Definitely recommended. The number of excellent stories far outnumbers the average ones, and thus this would make for a perfect humorous and relaxing addition to your library.

4.5 stars based on my overall enjoyment of the book.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss+ for the DRC of “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Well That Was Funny: 101 Feel Good Stories”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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As someone who has long been intrigued by our dream lives, I was immediately interested in an ebook red-flagged by my library app titled "Listen to Your Dreams." In my haste to check it out, I somehow missed the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" header. Nothing against this wildly-successful series, but I've never been a huge fan of books that are compilations of inspirational anecdotes. Nevertheless, my fascination with dreams spurred me to begin reading the assortment. I found the first 15 or 20 show more bite-sized slices of life to be quite interesting. I especially liked how each mini-chapter started with a thought-provoking quote that set the tone for the upcoming tale. However, as I plowed through a few dozen stories, their themes and implied messages seemed to commingle into an almost repetitive collection. I sense I would have arrived at a different conclusion -- and assigned a higher rating -- if I had chosen to read one tale each day for 101 days. But reading nearly 40 entries in the span of a few days felt a bit a like "soup overdose." I guess I had been expecting more of an analysis of dream patterns as opposed to inspirational nuggets. But that's not the fault of the author or the book marketers. In this case, this dream devotee had his head in the clouds and clearly misinterpreted the book's underlying objectives. show less

Great book. Started off with great stories, then mixed very good and good stories.

I thought about adding it to my category (shelf) of 'dogs-favorite-books'. I started reading hundreds of dog books after reading Wesley Banks '100 best dog books of all time' list on his website and wanted to come up with my own list of 'best' dog books. He chose to not include books of stories in his list but I don't rule them out. My criteria, really loved the book, loved the writing and prose, would look show more forward to reading it again, has amazing for extremely touching moments. To me this book fits that.

My only reservation to this book is that it is billed on the cover as 'Includes stories about staying home with the dog during the COVID-19 crisis.' There is a lot of stories that mentioned or dealt with it. Thinking of the COVID crisis is very upsetting to. me. Not just the lost of life and fear, but the thought it was purposely created in a lab, and then used as an excuse to chip away more of our rights, and to send out millions of mail-in ballots that caused massive 'irregularities' as evidenced by the audit results. Considering how thinking of the COVID crisis upsets me, and that I still want to put it in as my favorites, means I really do think it is a very good book. (Rant off. Nothing relating to that rant part was in the book). show less

Wonderful collection of examples of regular people stepping up to perform small acts of kindness at the right moment providing impactful help to individuals in need.

Some of my favorites are: Chocolate Cake showing the best way to react to an autistic person; The Purple Coat demonstrating the continuous benefits of low pricing at charity sales, i.e. rummage sales for communities; Dennis, points out the grace of sincerely smiling at all people especially to the poor and homeless; Kindness show more Never Goes Out of Style, an empathetic hair stylist helps a sick and dying woman feel beautiful one last time; It Gets Better, an experienced mom demonstrates emotional support for a young mom of a child with ADHD; Mystery Man and similar stories of paying for someone's lunch, dinner, groceries were all gems; and From a Child, showing that children can be particularly sympathetic and compassionate.

Excellent and sweet read. I found reading one or two of these stories at a time made each day a bit better. show less