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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
medium-paced
My copy included the stories: "Parade", "Music for Lovers", "The Last You'll Hear from Me", "My Manuscript", "Firestone", "We Get Along", Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol.3, No.2", "Don's Story", "Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!", "Jamboree", "After Malison", and "Barrel Fever"; also included the Essays: "Diary of a Smoker"/a.k.a "Drag", "Giantess", "The Curly Kind", and "SantaLand Diaries".
I think my favorites were "We Get Along", "After Malison" and "Diary of a Smoker." Of course, "SantaLand Diaries" is a classic, and I read it every year.
I think my favorites were "We Get Along", "After Malison" and "Diary of a Smoker." Of course, "SantaLand Diaries" is a classic, and I read it every year.
I prefer his essays to his fiction, and this one was a little heavy on the fiction.
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
This book had a higher proportion of fictional stories than I would care for when it comes to David Sedaris. I really prefer his essays about his family and personal experiences.
DNF. I've read and enjoyed other things Sedaris has written, but this collection felt lazy and repetitive. The voices of the narrators in the stories were all painfully similar. I say painfully because I really didn't care for that voice (over-the-top, self-important, and self-deluded). I skipped forward to the essays only to be disappointed in those as well. They lacked the depth and insight I've found in his other works. I dreaded the thought of continuing to read this collection, so I decided this was a great time to add Barrel Fever to my DNF shelf.
A mix of fiction and essays. I prefer the essays but the short stories are excellent as well and allow Sedaris to mix it up a little. I snort frequently.
This first collection of Sedaris' is a mix of fiction and essays. The first couple of stories started things off to a rocky start but gets back on track with stories full of his trademark sarcastic humor which I find really funny. The last essay, Santaland Diaries, is a classic and should be read every Christmas.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
I think I picked this up at a thrift store. This was pretty fun to read. Nice, quick and fucked up stories about the human condition. I always enjoy when a book makes me stop and realize how much of myself I put into them and can change a story. I went in reading these as a straight female, which switching to male is fairly common but once you realize a main character is gay it catches me pushing too much of myself in stories. It’s just an unfamiliar perspective and it’s interesting to be thrown in to something different. There were multiple stories like this so I looked up if David Sedaris was gay, which he is, so he was just writing what would probably be a normal perspective for him. Sorry, I feel like I’m not making any sense. Guess you’ll just have to read it on your own