Please God Let It Be Herpes: A Heartfelt Quest for Love and Companionship is a series of true stories from author Carlos Kotkin’s dating life.  In it he takes readers through numerous disastrous encounters with the opposite sex that have plagued him while he just wants to find the right girl and fall in love.

Please God Let It Be Herpes is a pretty hilarious book.  But it’s also got a nice amount of heart.  In fact the first few chapters are more heartbreaking than funny.  Kotkin discusses from the start his belief in love and how he’s always wanted to find it.  The book begins with his first crush/relationship in elementary school which is just a wonderfully heartwarming story.  From there it skips ahead to those always troubling high school years and tells the tale of his prom (one of two he will go on in his life, the second which he attends as an adult will be told later on in a story that is both funny and more than a little sad at the same time).  This prom story encompasses a bigger story of a long held crush that I think will hit home with a lot of people, although I’m sure most people’s circumstances will be vastly different.

From there the book begins to lighten up and things get funny fast.  Carlos Kotkin has certainly gone on a lot of horrible dates.  The story where the title of the book comes from is brief but cringe-worthy in a way that I won’t even hint at here as it’s too funny.  There’s a nice callback to this later on though when Kotkin describes his experiences when he decides to take yoga classes.  There’s also a trip to Knott’s Berry Farm with a girl from Playboy, a Hawaiian girl from Ohio, and an incredible tale of a trip to Australia and the awkward and crazy experiences that occur on it.  That’s just a few of the stories that are incredibly enjoyable.

Kotkin tells each of his tales of misfortune with lots of detail and a good comic voice. He also goes into each experience with good intentions, just looking for his soulmate.  There’s a ton of material here but it’s usually in short chapters that get right to the point and give good fun chunks of quick reading.  In fact this is a super quick read as you just keep telling yourself you’ll put it down after one more story and soon find yourself at the back cover.

I recommend picking this up if you’ve ever been on a disastrous date or you just enjoy reading about other people’s hilarious misfortunes.  Check it out for some good laughs.  It comes out March 6th.  You can get it now via the links below or at your local bookseller.