As a fan of the explosm.net website which features a never ending amount of comics completed by friends Kris, Rob, Matt and Dave I was very pleased when my boyfriend bought me this book for me as a gift.

It features over 150 comic strips, 30 of which are never before seen, as well as 'interactive' sections that poke fun at do it yourself sections of magasines with crosswords, fill-in-the-gaps and even a dot to dot. The book claims that these sections are for "kids and slow adults", however with the content of these sections, verging on the offensive and politically incorrect, the book is perhaps a bit more suited to adults. This section is a joke as you spend all of 10 seconds filling them out, all of them, but its still laugh out loud funny and a little outrageous.

The book features strips on a variety of subjects, like the old faithfuls from the website 'Doctor Baby' and 'Super Jerk' which are funny as always. As well as this, there are a number of never before seen comic strips which continue to prove how funny these four guys are and are gratly enjoyable.

The book is an awkward shape, meaning it doesn't fit into my teeny bookcase and isn't particularly long. But with a few strips to each page, unless that particular episode requires the full page if say, the animation grows outside of the squares, it is well worth the money and full to the brim with laughs.

One product description claims "If you're younger than 15 or older than 50, there is an 87% chance that something in this book will offend you", something i greatly agree with. Not that this book is overly offensive and will offend everyone, but for those of you whom are a little sensitive you may be a little shocked at certain strips. If anything, the fact that the ridiculousness is stemming from cute and simplistic cartoons brushes off much of the offensiveness and makes the book much more witty and dry-witted.

Its difficult to describe this book as obviously it is not a piece of literature, but it is neither a piece of art. One way to describe it is just four friends getting away with as much as they can and being funny in addition.

A lot of people might limit Cyanide and Happiness to being just a stupid, childish book, and they're right. But that's what makes it so great, as you snicker away as you're turning the pages.