This is a hard rate for me. On one hand, I want to give this book a 4 because it's funny, had some great quotes and it summed up the Florida experience pretty well. On the other, half the book had me bored to tears because it was not random quirky facts about Florida, but boring political nonsense that made me want to die.

This is the first book I've rated with half a star lol

Now, onto the quotes!

"Florida is out to kill us, so why not enjoy the time we have left? How is Florida trying to kill us? Let me count the ways. 1 - Florida is the lightning capital of the western hemisphere. [...] 2 - Florida is the shark bite capital of the world. Queue jaws theme. [...] 3 - Florida reigns surpreme among the states on the number of reported sink holes that open up and swallow everything on the surface. [...] 4 - Florida gets hit by more hurricanes than any other state. [...] So, put it all together - lightning, sharks, hurricanes, sink holes - and you can see why we're supposed to be the scariest state. And I didn't even mention the clown college in Sarasota."

I knew none of this lmao Well, I mean, I knew about the hurricanes, of course. And probably the sharks since we have so much coast. But sinkholes? And a mother fucking CLOWN COLLEGE? What the fuck, Florida.

"Given our vulnerability to hurricanes and flooding, where's the most dangerous place to live? The coast. Yet where do most of us live? The coast."

I will never understand this shit. How many times must your home be completely flattened, costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars before you finally stop building there?? Do these people just have stacks of cash sitting around, waiting to be burnt? 

"Now that you know all the ways Florida is trying to kill us all, you might wonder why people keep on moving here. The answer is simple, really - it's because we lie to them."

I have always wondered this. I was born and raised here and I HATE living in Florida. Shit's expensive as hell, there's way too many people here, there's way too many tourists on top of the people here, no one knows how to drive, there's mosquitos everywhere, each year gets hotter and more humid... It fucking sucks here and I wish I had the money to move.

The only good thing about Florida, in my opinion, is the rain that comes with hurricane season. Everything else sucks dick.

Stop coming here. It is not the tropical paradise you think it is. Go to California. Go bother to insane people over there instead. Stop retiring here. Stop moving here. Take Disneyland and stop visiting here.

"When I was teaching my teenager to drive, one thing I made sure he practiced was how to manouver through a road that's under construction. 'You need to know this because, at any one time, half of the roads you'll drive on will be under construction,' I said, inventing a dramatic statistic just to make sure he paid attention. 'And then when they're done with those, the road crew will begin work on the other half.' Despite my made up percentage, the fact is that a lot of Florida roads are under construction a lot of the time." 

Fucking FACTS, bro. Where is the lie?? I don't leave the house very often but every time I do, there is ALWAYS some kind of construction. And the funny part? The roads are still fucked up, despite them constantly being worked on. Find me a road without a pothole or dip, I dare you.

"We've got a water crisis, insurance crisis, environmental crisis and budget crisis to go with our housing crisis." 

Bruh, Florida IS the crisis 😭 

I will say, the experience of the author and my own personal experience doesn't fully sync up. It sounds like he he's had money to experience Florida properly - theme parks, springs, canoeing, camping, travelling, etc. I've done none of that because we've never had the money to spare.

Well, when I was a small child, we visited Busch Gardens once a year, but that stopped when my grandad died. I was 12, I think? Everything kinda went downhill from there. 

So, I guess Florida can be fun if you have money. If you're broke, this is just hell's courtyard.

I learned a lot of shit about Florida through this book and I couldn't help but smile at the stories I already knew (bath salts zombie, who?) I won't lie, though, I completely blacked out whenever he went on about political shit. I just don't care, especially given the stressful state of politics today. I came for the funny, dumb Florida stories.

I know, I know. You can't have a history about Florida without politics. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.