A review by mosso
100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater by Sarah Ruhl

3.0

I read this book in a single sitting on a four hour flight. It's not particularly long and was a great quick read, but I feel like I got out the time I invested in it, not a whole lot. Sarah Ruhl's 100 essays focus on theater, minimalism, and literature, which I care deeply about, and parenthood, which I do not. The essays on parenthood are at least amusing and the ones on theater I found either fascinating or relatable or both. My issue is that the term essay is used rather liberally. Maybe it's just me, but I feel to be called an essay, you need more than one or two paragraphs (or sentences in some cases). Every time I felt that Ruhl may be leading on to a bigger idea, deeper message, thought-provoking inquiry, the essay would end and start into another one, leaving me to draw my own conclusions (such is a playwright though). This book made me laugh in the I'm-reading-in-public way where you just exhale a little more than usual, and it was, at its heart, a very genuine, varied, and intimate snapshot of life. So if you ever find yourself in need of a way to kill a couple of hours, it's not a bad way to pass the time.

Favorite Essay:
11. An essay in favor of smallness

I admire minimalism.