Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down

So what do you get when you let an MMA fighter write a book about how to survive the apocalypse? When said fighter is Forrest Griffin you get "Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down: A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse". What can I say? The guy is a character. If you know anything about him then you probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this book. He's got his own brand of self deprecating humor. He's also extremely offensive and it's pretty obvious that he doesn't care who he pisses off. The fact that I found this book in the comedy section of Barnes & Noble should give you a good idea of what to expect.

Before you pick up this book you've got to understand what I mean by "offensive". The book is loaded with sexual innuendo and toilet humor. He swears a lot (he even makes a point to use a different swear word for every letter of the alphabet). He pulls no punches against organized religion. In fact, he devotes an entire section to founding your own religion after the apocalypse. He takes shots at everyone from fatties living in mom's basement to meathead jocks.

The book itself is a very easy read. It's loaded with personal anecdotes, stupid little pictures (some of him and some that must have been drawn by him), silly footnotes and other tidbits of wisdom. If you're as riddled with ADD as I am then it only takes a few paragraphs before you're reading the words on the page without actually absorbing any of the information. His style proves to be a very effective way to keep the reader engaged.

So is any of the information actually useful? While the book has whole sections that describe off the wall, totally ridiculous, unfeasible scenarios like the organizing your own religion section that I previously mentioned (ok so that's probably actually feasible under the right circumstances), how to kill a giant wolf in the event of Ragnarok (heed the editor's warning before that section) or how to milk a giraffe from the back of a motorcycle it does contain enough useful information to be worth a read. However, if you're a seasoned survivalist/prepper you won't find much new, useful information here.

So what can you expect from the book? It has it's serious moments. It covers bugging out, what to put in a BOB, hotwiring a vehicle, basic self defense moves, basic firearm handling and other cookie cutter survivalist stuff. None of it is very in depth but he provides enough information that you get the gist of it. The "how shit will go down" section is the part that most interested me. Some of the scenarios were completely ridiculous but most of them were actual viable SHTF scenarios that were portrayed very accurately. This is probably the most useful part of the book because Forrest's style of writing does a good job of keeping people engaged and paying attention.

So who would I recommend the book to? If you have a friend or a kid in the 20-35 range who thinks that Family Guy and South Park are funny and who can tell you who Forrest Griffin is then they'd probably get a kick out of it. It might even be enough to get them to think seriously about prepping if they're not already doing it. Then again the book is so loaded with humor a lot of readers probably won't take it seriously. That's too bad because it's obvious that Forrest has done his share of thinking about the topic. Maybe he'll get through to a few people.