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A review by selenajournal
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
1.0
I'm one of the few people in this world who does not think that David Sedaris is funny or deserves the critical acclaim that he has received for his various endeavors.
His stories are not particularly funny or clever. I feel like anyone could be a David Sedaris. Sit some asshole down and tell him to write something remotely funny in a memoir kind of way, and there you have it: David Sedaris. The New Yorker will publish it at first in short stories and from there someone will ask you to compile it into a somewhat coherent novel and walk around like you did something special. He didn't. He doesn't. This book is no better than his previous "novels" but it sure is worse. Why?
You can't truly be a good writer without smoking (if you didn't know, nicotine equals good writing). And in fact, you shouldn't quit smoking and have a skeleton smoking a cigarette on the cover of your new book. Just a thought.
His stories are not particularly funny or clever. I feel like anyone could be a David Sedaris. Sit some asshole down and tell him to write something remotely funny in a memoir kind of way, and there you have it: David Sedaris. The New Yorker will publish it at first in short stories and from there someone will ask you to compile it into a somewhat coherent novel and walk around like you did something special. He didn't. He doesn't. This book is no better than his previous "novels" but it sure is worse. Why?
You can't truly be a good writer without smoking (if you didn't know, nicotine equals good writing). And in fact, you shouldn't quit smoking and have a skeleton smoking a cigarette on the cover of your new book. Just a thought.