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A review by carlyxdeexx
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
3.0
Maybe I would have liked the audiobook better. Perhaps hearing the humor would have made it more funny for me.
Because I kinda expected to chuckle out loud to myself reading this, and I honestly never did. Not that it isn’t humorous—the humor is just not the kind that got me laughing while reading, which I guess is difficult, to get someone so immersed in a written work that they lose the self-conscious urge to stifle laughter.
But anyway, I think this book will be a hit with some people and just kinda meh for others. Some of the stories really stood out to me—“That’s Amore” was particularly memorable, and “The Smoking Section” was my favorite, but it’s at the very end of the collection! The rest were just okay, though they had their moments. I agree with another reviewer who mentioned that these stories don’t seem finished. I felt I was waiting for a punch line most of the time, and though each story wrapped up with a line that called back to something, that line didn’t seem to deliver anything to me, and so fell flat. Even the ends of the stories I did like didn’t wrap up with the punch I wanted/expected. I finished thinking, “Okay, but what was the point?” And I guess there doesn’t necessarily have to be a point. But there wasn’t anything else distracting me from the lack.
I’d like to read NAKED and ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY, since I’ve heard they’re the best of Sedaris’s work and this doesn’t seem like it lives up to that.
Because I kinda expected to chuckle out loud to myself reading this, and I honestly never did. Not that it isn’t humorous—the humor is just not the kind that got me laughing while reading, which I guess is difficult, to get someone so immersed in a written work that they lose the self-conscious urge to stifle laughter.
But anyway, I think this book will be a hit with some people and just kinda meh for others. Some of the stories really stood out to me—“That’s Amore” was particularly memorable, and “The Smoking Section” was my favorite, but it’s at the very end of the collection! The rest were just okay, though they had their moments. I agree with another reviewer who mentioned that these stories don’t seem finished. I felt I was waiting for a punch line most of the time, and though each story wrapped up with a line that called back to something, that line didn’t seem to deliver anything to me, and so fell flat. Even the ends of the stories I did like didn’t wrap up with the punch I wanted/expected. I finished thinking, “Okay, but what was the point?” And I guess there doesn’t necessarily have to be a point. But there wasn’t anything else distracting me from the lack.
I’d like to read NAKED and ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY, since I’ve heard they’re the best of Sedaris’s work and this doesn’t seem like it lives up to that.