Tucker Max’s Assholes Finish First: A Review By a Woman With a Vagina That Would Just Like to Finish

Just as watching Hoarders: Buried Alive inspires me to clean, reading motivates me to write. So, I recently dove into Tucker Max’s Assholes Finish First. Admittedly, I’m a couple years late on this one, but when it’s come up in conversation, people have been surprisingly intrigued.  

Photo compliments of Wikipedia.

I suspect there are a number of readers who haven’t read Max’s books for fear of being an asshole by association. Of course, it’s entirely possible that they aren’t interested in moronic, offensive tales of drunken debauchery and shameless sex (the good, the bad, and the fucking horrific)—a genre now deemed “fratire”—but, I stand by the former. 

In prepping to write this review, I struggled a bit myself. I spent 4 years at an all-women’s university—treading water in a pool of feminism, submerging myself in the LGBT community. For those of you lacking such an experience, let me spare you a commercial case of Midol and summarize: have respect for people—all of them. How could I bring myself to write that I found Tucker Max’s—a raging dickhead’s—book to be funny?

First, let me say that, although Assholes Finish First resonates with oodles of fratty douchebags and skeezy guidos, it appeals to normal people, and women, too. The success of the book supports this truth, as well as another: people may not endorse twisted concepts, but they find them entertaining. 

Max’s accounts are generally inconceivable and laugh-out-loud funny—assuming you can find humor in obnoxious behavior. You’ve gotta bring that to the table, ’cause, let’s not kid ourselves, Assholes Finish First is highly fucking offensive. Not your standard comedian trampling on political correctness. This is the Tucker Max dimension. If you know yourself to be easily—even occasionally, remotely offended—cracking this one open is just begging for a shit storm. 

Get past that, though, and you might even appreciate a certain quality of Max’s writing. Not what I’d call that of a literary genius, but his writing is exceptional in its brutal, unabashed honesty. For better, or [much, much] worse, Max puts his shit out there. It’s compelling, and most of us can appreciate that, in one way or another. Because it takes balls to be honest. And if you’re reading closely, you’ll be forced to ask yourself, “How ballsy am I?”         

So, that’s how I came to terms with writing my review. Had to be honest.

And, honestly, Tucker Max had me at “Polly Rottenpuss.”