A Very Brady Guide to Life

1996, possibly first edition, from Rutledge Hill Press
Jennifer Briggs
A Very Brady Guide to Life: Groovy Solutions to Life's Most Puzzling Dilemmas
Bought new for $7.95
Worn paperback
D+

One of the times I've laughed really hard in a movie theater was at The Brady Bunch Movie (1995).  The sequel from the next year wasn't as funny but had its moments (the Brady Kids parody in particular).  So that this book has at least as much to do with the movie versions as the TV show (the photos are of the film cast) is not necessarily a bad thing.  

Unfortunately, Briggs is often painfully unfunny.  Even when she comes up with a joke that works, like about how the Bradys in one episode accidentally come home in a different car than they left in, she kills it by repeating it at least twice.  The book has letters from ordinary people, as well as thinly disguised celebrities, e.g. "Knute, somewhere inside the Beltway," and a man who feels Mike's pain.  Each Brady gives clueless advice in character, or at least the characters as presented in the movies.  Many of the questions are sexual, often involving pregnancy or homosexuality, with no less than three same-sex writers hitting on Alice, Greg, and Peter.  I couldn't decide if Briggs was homophobic, since she doesn't know how to tell a joke anyway.  (Mike is presented as straight, with an interest in Beebe Gallini, although Robert Reed's death had outed him a few years before.)

Recommended only for the Brady completist.