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

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

Paul Feig, .. Three Rivers, $13.95 (293pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-5175-5

It bodes well that the dedication to this book is laugh-out-loud funny, and indeed, Feig (Kick Me ) does not disappoint in this comedic tale of his early sex life, or lack thereof. The author, creator of the television series Freaks and Geeks , was always a romantic, but sex, in many ways, frightened him. As a practicing Christian Scientist, he believed he should not only refrain from sex, but from masturbation, too—yet his adolescent hormones disagreed. His confusion was compounded when he heard a radio preacher declare, "[E]veryone knows that each time you masturbate, God takes one day off of your life." Feig writes in desperation, "Everyone knew this? Nobody told me about it.... How many days had I lopped off my life so far?" At heart, the memoir is a one-note story of sexual frustration. Feig doesn't delve deeply into his religion, his family relations or his life outside of the physical. The book's many flashbacks will satisfy any child of the 1970s (e.g., Feig is wild about roller skating). While his eventual deflowering is anticlimactic, the account of his journey to sexual manhood is witty and entertaining and one to which any former sex-addled adolescent (male or female) will relate. Agent, Joni Evans . (July)