Ever been to Panama City in Florida? After reading this book, you may be on your way.

Keith Strausbaugh’s “Beer and Loathing in Panama City: A Bloodthirsty Spring Break Exodus” brings together a mix of drunken rants and a stream of conscious writing that offers the audience a look into the mind of the spring break male.

Prime for the adult-only audience, “Beer and Loathing” details the journey of eight Virginia Tech students as they survey and purvey the beaches of Florida for girls, thrills, beer and the never-ending high of spring break.

Set obviously in Panama City, Fla., Strausbaugh unveils the truths of a city running on spring break’s schedule complete with 24-hour services, men and women who never leave Panama City – or spring break behind – bars, booze, scantily clad women and multinational, corporate-sponsored binge drinking.

Bringing reality to the surrealism of spring break, Strausbaugh reveals a city of sin at its worst, being at the heart of it and of the misadventures of America’s youth culture without the hinges of responsibility to hold them to the hard truths of Strausbaugh’s morality.

In a book about immorality, Strausbaugh brings (for lack of a better word) “truthiness” to the morals that can be found in a life of relentless alcoholism and sexual schemes revealing the inner qualities of young men looking to make the best of a week of full unadulterated freedom.

While this is all well and good for the content of the book, I found the form of the novel to be overrated and under informative. After all, stream of consciousness style-writing works great for pros like Virginia Woolf; Strausbaugh fails to fully bring into the readers perspective the overall ending affect of his times in Panama City. I also found the outside characters to be significantly underdeveloped and vague, but, as a whole, the book pulls off the possibility of a drunken-rant writing style quite well.

In fact, there is also a light and comical aspect to the novel. In fact, I laughed hysterically during several instances of unintended humor.

The book was overall readable and funny. Strausbaugh succeeds in divulging the inner workings of a mind exposed to too much beer, sun and women. I highly recommend “Beer and Loathing” as a pop culture book.

So, give Strausbaugh’s “Beer and Loathing in Panama City” a try, and you may find some familiarity from your own past spring break adventures within the imbibed tirades of America’s youth culture during the best week of the spring semester.

-Brittany burden is an english senior.