The exclamation point can be overused, gratuitous — and misunderstood, unfairly maligned. It can be applied to highlight a legitimate crescendo at the end of a sentence and bring home a victorious achievement described in prose. It can articulate rising volume in dialogue. Or it can underscore an irony, thus having an effect opposite of its original intent.

Or, it can be used twice. Twice in a row. In The New York Times.

When subscribers pick up their papers tomorrow, a book review on page C25 will capture their attention immediately. This piece of criticism focuses on a new self-help book by health guru and Internet entrepreneur Timothy Ferriss, a Princeton grad with a heretofore unseen zeal for bodily, mental and sexual perfection. His first book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, spent 75 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list (hardcover advice category) and now his latest opus gets the Times review treatment, to entertaining effect. It is called The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, and it debuted at number one (also in the hardcover advice category).

The Times describes it thusly:

This is not your auntie’s self-help book.

It’s among the craziest, most breathless things I’ve ever read, and I’ve read Klaus Kinski, Dan Brown and Snooki.

Paging through “The 4-Hour Body” is like reading the sprawling menu in a dubious diner, quite certain the only thing you’d dare order is the turkey club.

“The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal of Medicine had been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog.

He is never boring.

But the review is most noteworthy for two brief parentheticals, the latter of which may be a groundbreaking use of punctuation in the history of The New York Times.

Mr. Ferriss offers advice about so many disparate things — not simply losing weight and building muscle and improving sex and living forever, but learning to hold your breath longer than Houdini (!) and hit baseballs like Babe Ruth (!!)

Your eyes do not deceive you. Those are indeed two exclamation points, placed directly next to each other. For the Gray Lady, this level of ebullience is shocking. But there it is, the mythical double exclamation, smack dab in the middle of a book review.

There’s only one way to articulate how this makes us feel: !!!

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nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

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