Book Review: ‘To be Perfectly Honest’

Posted on by

After my last book review for Waterbrook, I decided I needed to choose something a little bit less…heavy. I mean, after all, I’d spent nearly three months reading about the topic of pain, suffering, and why evil exists. It was time for a break.

Enter Phil Callaway and his book, To be Perfectly Honest. The comedian-author took a vow of honesty for a year. For 365 days, he did his best to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – and chronicled his thoughts and struggles, his victories and failures in this book.

The author is refreshingly authentic in this book. In a book about honesty, one would expect such things, I guess. He openly discusses his struggles with money, lust, sharing his faith, and how to wrap his mental arms around the fact that some of his friends are struggling through some very painful situations. As one would expect, his daily entries about his year of living honestly are laced with humor. I think this is my favorite entry that highlights his struggle:

‎”I’ve been lying awake thinking of a friend who dumped me, who disappeared completely off my radar. He has spread false rumors and damaged my reputation. My wife says I should pray for him, but all that comes out is, ‘Lord, may the front wheels fall off his shopping cart. May a watermelon fall out and land on his toe.’ Does this count as prayer?” – page 38

Callaway’s truth-vow does present some sticky situations that I didn’t expect. If you’re trying to live honestly, can you laugh at someone’s joke even though you don’t think it’s very funny? What if someone seeks your forgiveness for something they didn’t do to you (but think they did)? Is there a statute of limitations, or do you have to go back and make things right – even if it means giving back the five dollars you happened to steal when you were a little kid? Living honestly also forces us to get real with ourselves. When we do that, we realize we’re just as messed up as everyone else we look down our noses towards.

While it won’t make my list of top ten books I’ve read this year, I did find myself encouraged to live my life a little bit more honestly and openly as a result of reading it. That was, after all, the point of the book. It’s a funny and touching reflection on how our lives intersect with one another, how there really is something amazing about this thing we call grace, and how we really aren’t going to be all God has intended for us to be until we choose to do what Phil did and decide to get real with God, ourselves, and other people.
You can purchase To Be Perfectly Honest here, if you’d like.
Disclaimer: I am a participant in the Blogging for Books program. I received this book from Waterbrook-Multnomah in exchange for an honest review.

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy LinkedIn profileMy Instagram profileMy Flickr profileMy Pinterest profileMy Tumblr blogMy YouTube channel

Matt Todd

Howdy. I'm Matt. My wife, Christy, and I have four kids and two dogs, I'm passionate about orphan care. I'm a die-hard fan of the Evansville Aces, the Indiana Hoosiers, and Star Wars. I'm trying to live life by the Todd family motto: "It behooves us to live!"
Spread the love