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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
I LOVE Sedaris' essays and the ones in this book are 5star quality, but the majority of this book is his fictional stories and I find them less entertaining.
you just can't read a David Sedaris without laughing out loud. always enjoyable.
I do like the essays half more than the first half though
I do like the essays half more than the first half though
I really didn't feel like David Sedaris' short stories were nearly as strong as his essays.
My least favorite of his books. Some of the essays are crude in a way that isn't funny, like a teenage girl who is forced to perform oral on her uncle. Thankfully, he tones down the molestation in his later essays.
I could hear all of these stories being delivered in David Sedaris' distinct "gossipy mother" voice he does during live shows. Which is true of all of his stories to an extent, but it's especially distinct in Barrel Fever, wherein every story is heavily dependent on gossip and silly, exaggerated self-importance. Every fiction piece is either a first-person narration or in the form of a letter/speech/address. And really, every protagonist is essentially just Sedaris in slightly varying ages, genders, and family situations. It could be argued that this is true of the work of any writer -- that there's always a character that's supposed to be the author in a different form -- but it's especially acute here because all of these characters have nearly the exact same voice.
That's not to say that it's bad by any means. Many of the stories were quite funny, wacky, and witty. It's just that after reading several of his other books and listening to many of his shows I could have guessed that this was his first book even if I'd not already known that ahead of time. Sedaris was obviously still finding his voice at this point, so at times this book feels a little wobbly and unsure of itself. But it's still worth a read if you're a fan of the man.
That's not to say that it's bad by any means. Many of the stories were quite funny, wacky, and witty. It's just that after reading several of his other books and listening to many of his shows I could have guessed that this was his first book even if I'd not already known that ahead of time. Sedaris was obviously still finding his voice at this point, so at times this book feels a little wobbly and unsure of itself. But it's still worth a read if you're a fan of the man.
Several of the stories were just bad-- horrible people doing horrible things, unfunny and over-the-top. Others were fine, if perhaps a little primitive, Sedaris-wise, but the bad ones were so bad, the whole book felt irredeemable. I didn't bother rereading the elsewhere-published Santaland Diaries or Season's Greetings.
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
I prefer Sedaris' nonfiction essays to his short stories--and while this volume contains both, the essays are just thrown in at the end. The fiction was a little too graphic and over the top, so any emotional vulnerability he tries to inject is lost in the hubbub.
Two or three noteworthy shorts; the rest are middling. Worth having, if only for the story about smoking.