Textastrophe: A Collection of Hilariously Catastrophic Text Pranks

by Matt Andrews

Once upon a time, prank phone calls were the best way to procrastinate, but in 2015, they're so passé. Instead, Matt Andrews has mastered the art of prank texting. What happens when you offer to barter two sub-sandwiches for a used motorcycle? Who do you call when you want to build a mysterious man cave in your basement? What do you do if you need a knight in shining armor to deliver you to your high school reunion? If you've ever left a "contact me" pull-tab at your local grocery or posted an ad on Craigslist and received insane and unbelievable text messages in response, Andrews is very likely to blame. We'd be mad at him if we could stop laughing long enough to hit "send" on the exceptionally witty come back we thought of...too bad he's already moved on to his next target and deleted us from his phone, now only to be remembered in these pages of his laugh-out-loud funny book.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2014

Reviews

[karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

looks like i'm all grown up now! utterly adult and humorless!

i don't know why i thought i would enjoy this book. i've never enjoyed "pranksters," or aggressive performative gag comedy, so even if this book had been written by someone who was genuinely funny, i probably would still have been the wrong audience for it. but this guy just isn't that funny. i am not a fan of andy kaufman, but at least there was a cleverness to his schtick. i could appreciate his manipulation of boundaries and his provocation even if i wasn't amused by it. this guy - this shit is just boring.

so his whole thing is that he was working a dull job at a smartphone kiosk in a mall. he had a lot of free time on his hands, and a lot of phones at his disposal. so his genius idea was to pay his misery forward and start texting people foolish enough to post their numbers onto craigslist and pretend to be interested in the services they were offering, asking increasingly outlandish or abusive questions until they snapped and ended the exchange with "fuck you!" or "go to hell!"

and that's the joke.

over and over.

and it's just… dull. it's dull because he's not particularly funny. there are probably people who could have pulled this off in a way that would have made me laugh, but this guy just doesn't have the comedy chops to deliver. it's just one juvenile scenario after another. is it funny to contact someone looking for a place to store their boat and offer your garage and then, over the course of a few more texts, reveal that you are a teenager who doesn't have permission to rent out the family garage and is planning on taking the boat out with his friends for crazy good times? is it funny to try to hire a dj for a kids halloween party and then spring all these intricate babysitting responsibilities on him?? is it funny to make a stranger buy you a coffee and wait around at a starbucks for you while you pretend you have an iphone to sell? is it funny to try to to convince people to engage in criminal activities when they are just trying to make a few extra bucks tutoring or coaching or fixing computers? is it funny to waste people's time? see, i don't think it is. and i don't think it's interesting to read a prolonged series of texts in which regular people are put into situations that just stress them out. i worked retail for a long time, and i smiled my way through countless frustrating exchanges that were so bizarre i felt like it must have been a joke, but it never was. and i can assure you, that shitty feeling lingers and can infect the whole rest of the day. this is just a gleeful coward trying to pass the time in his shit job by ruining other people's days at their shit jobs. and that joke isn't funny to anyone who has ever had to work with the public and had their time wasted by people who were lonely or bored or angry and just looking for a target.

this kind of shit is only cool if, at the end, the victim understands that they have been part of a joke, or is given a car or something as a "good sport" treat. otherwise, you just walk around with a part of you thinking "people are such assholes" and simmering with hostility. and lord knows, we don't need any more of that.

this is the only one that made me laugh, because it showed a speck of cleverness:

http://textastrophe.com/post/73220323...



but the rest of it. juvenile twaddle.

[Suz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a laugh. A prankster texter. Probably just reaffirms what I've been thinking. No one can talk anymore. Too much texting! I read most of this on a 3.5 hour road trip.

Need a little tolerance though, some a little crude. And a little silly!

[Hil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly entertaining for a couple of hours but I think I laughed about twice (the Italian restaurant logo one was the only one I'd say was funny). It's the same format as Damn You Autocorrect by Jillian Madison, but that one is at least 1000 times more funny. If you like those hidden camera wind up tv shows or djs that do wind up calls, this is the same sort of thing.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

These were funny from the view of the person pulling the prank but irritating for the one on the other end of it.It takes a good sense of humor on both ends to appreciate pranks.The trick is to stay out of trouble when doing it.

[Fallingleave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun at first but became monotone after that.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, if a bit vulgar.

[Brighton Hugg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess it was mildly entertaining.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

who knew that text pranks could be so hilarious. :-)

[Meg - A Bookish Affair]

As author Matt Andrews shows in "Textastrophe," putting your phone number in a public place like a Craigslist listing or on a sign may be a bad idea, a really bad idea. Andrews has perfected the final art of text pranking and this book is a collection of some of the different text pranks that he has pulled.

If you read the Textastrophe blog, you might be familiar with some of these pranks as I was. However, there were a lot of other hilarious pranks that I was not familiar with that I loved reading. And even those that I was familiar with still got a good laugh out of me.

This is a very quick read that will give you a good laugh. I could see it being really good gift for someone who is looking for a laugh or needs a little bit of cheering up.

[Tima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combine boredom and a huge supply of random cell numbers and you have this hilarious book. The author was working at a boring cell phone kiosk when he started his cell phone pranks. What resulted was a book that will make you laugh, a lot.

Each prank begins with the ad or flyer that inspired it. The format is as if the reader is seeing the actual phone. Pranks such as trading two sub sandwiches for a motorcycle and offering up a parents garage for boat storage are just a few of the pranks the author pulled on unsuspecting cell phone owners. If you enjoy reading about pranks or cell phone mishaps than pick up this book for several hours of hilarity.

I received this book free of charge from St. Martin's Press in exchange for my honest review.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by Matt Andrews, Textastrophe is a collection of prank texts. While the author worked at a phone store he took advantage of the phones to make prank texts if he found ads on Craigslist with people's phone numbers.

I have to admit this book is pretty amusing. Prank texts is a funny idea, but I wouldn't call this book laugh out loud funny. I chuckled here and there, but I think this book needs to be read in short bursts because I found myself feeling bad when the people (who had no idea they were being pranked) were getting frustrated. If you know someone who loves this type of humor this would be a great gift for them.

[Hannah Jane Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book And started reading it right away. I was in need of a much needed laugh and I got just that. I myself am a fan of the phone call pranks and have done my fair share of "internet trolling" through Reddit and many other social media sites. But I enjoy this new form of prank and may even try some of these if I were get the chance. Its a nice little read for a Sunday afternoon, a day in a park, or curled up in your bed for the sole purpose of because you can.

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from Goodreads First Reads.

I had already read most of these pranks on the author's blog, so it wasn't QUITE as hilarious for me the second (or third) time around. However, my husband read through it last night and told me it was "*expletive deleted* hysterical," so there's that.

Whether these really happened or not, they're pretty funny. Mission accomplished, Mr. Andrews.

[Nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great volume to pick up for a laugh when you have only a few minutes to read or you want to get your mind off something else as you will end up smirking if not laughing at the text sequences. Warning: not for children as almost all end in profanity and some are sexually suggestive. A family member picked it up, browsed, and was quite offended I had the book. I received a copy for review from Goodread First Reads.

[Rebecca Colton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found that it was a quick read for down time but to me nothing was funny or made me laugh from the "pranks" in this book. Something that I would say that impressed me about this was the design and format on the way it's content was laid out.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is Hysterical. It is a quick easy read. basically you are reading texts from the Author to people he is messing with. The language is raw in a lot of places, but it is still endlessly entertaining. I dare you not to laugh out loud at his outrageous texts to poor unsuspecting people.

[Elisabeth Hosmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Litterally all you need to know. Textastrophe is a collection of pranks via text that will make you laugh out loud. A perfect coffee table book or bathroom book, I found myself unable to put it down. Great gift in my opinion!

[Amy Lahr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book from Goodreads.
I didn't really find any of these text pranks funny. They almost seemed just kind of mean and wasted people's time.
What I did like about this book was the layout and the cover art.

[Chuck Knudsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is against my general practice of not enjoying books by assholes, but these pranks were pretty funny. I question how real they are, but that didn't stop me from giggling at some of the responses.

[Cindy Kleback · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juvenile? Yes. Funny? Yes. Creative? Yes. Worth a read? Yes, if only for the graphic design prank.

[Afomia Ayele · Rating 5 out of 5]

So hilarious

I really enjoyed this ......book? It was funny, but very different from what I usually read. I'm probably going to recommend this to my friends.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few very funny parts. Mostly this was a quick read that just lead to some smiles but few belly laughs.

[Amalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The texts weren't particularly funny, and they just seemed kinda obnoxious, and like extremely rude.