Diary of a Jackwagon

Comedian Hawkins, known for parody songs, parenting humor, and clean laughs, brings together his popular routine and his raucous home life in this debut taken from his “private comedy journal.” Those expecting a straightforward tale should look elsewhere; Hawkins’s book scorns chronology and narrative cohesion in favor of one zany punchline after another. With 20 years of stand-up experience and over 45 million YouTube views, Hawkins certainly knows how to attract a wide audience. Framing larger societal observations in stories taken from his private life, Hawkins frequently spirals off into riffs on the foibles of marriage, child-raising antics, anxieties about middle age, and bodily discomforts. As an evangelical Christian, he spends time poking fun (lovingly) at his community—their tendency to Christianese everything, their abhorrence of particular words and topics—and also combating the surface-level critique of evangelicals as “stick-in-the-mud, uneducated, ultra-conservative know-it-all(s).” Made with equal parts empathy and wit, these 41 meandering chapters eventually come together to reveal the unconventional blueprint of one of Christian humor’s kookiest minds. (Aug.)