CBC's The Next Chapter had a great interview with the auhor, and I have enjoyed his humour on The Debaters. So I opened this book with great anticipation. And shortly aftee closed it with disappointment. Not very funny - IMHO - and I didn't like the style of a series of short letters.

I gave up on this book about halfway through. Sure, the letters are relatable as a Canadian, but rarely actually funny. I just got bored.

As a fan of The Debaters I started out quite enjoying Steve Patterson's collection of comedic letters to recipients from "Jesus" to "lawyers" to "the letter X." Like the radio show, the book's humour includes quite a bit of wordplay, is slightly to the left of centre, and is relatable to the type of Canadian who falls into the CBC's core audience. I had two issues though. First is that it felt really long, with over 90 letters and only a few of them really hilarious. I would've preferred he write more where a theme was really working and edited himself more where the jokes were just so-so (e.g. the poorly-researched letter to Sir John A. Macdonald, which actually gives him a shout-out for naming Canada after an Indigenous word, when he was a pretty instrumental figure in our genocidal policies towards Indigenous people).

Second, there were more cringeworthy moments in the book, which became hard to laugh off, including fat jokes, cliché gender stereotypes, and a particularly essentialist/trans-exclusionary letter about X and Y chromosomes. I don't think any of this was intentional but on the gender stereotypes Patterson definitely knows better. In such a long collection, those letters could've easily been missed to the benefit of the whole.

Dear Mr Patterson,

Thanks so much for publishing your collection of letters you didn't know where to send. I have been a fan of your stand up for a while now, and any time I can, I tune into the Debaters, and constantly harass other people to do so as well.

Your letters are funny but also at times, right on the mark. You get down to business, and are not afraid to have an unpopular opinion on popular issues. Some of your letters are a bit out there, (how impressive you managed to write to several letters of the alphabet and have a "letters worth" of things to say to them!) and some of them are more touching and sweet than funny.

I also think that it is proof that you don't need to be the most academic with countless accolades to your name in order to have a worthy opinion on current events or issues. (Not to say I don't think you're intelligent... )

Yours truly,
Samantha