Four Star review, originally posted here on December 27, 2014.
I dunno. Not too much to say here. I kept wavering between three and four stars depending on which chapter I was reading: three stars for stuff that was just kinda there, four for any chapter where I was actually interested. This was my first crack at Sedaris, and overall I liked his storytelling ability and humor. I think I would have enjoyed the book a lot more overall if the first two chapters had not also been the weakest chapters; they did a poor job setting up the rest of the book, and it took a while to get back into it. The second chapter, though alright on its own, was completely mismatched with the rest of the chapters. In it, the narrator described himself as being cripplingly OCD, yet I had a really hard time believing that the OCD kid was the same person speaking in the other chapters, because it never seemed to come up again. By the end of the book I had learned shrug this off, but it took me a while. I’d say the strongest aspect of this book was Sedaris’ construction of his mother as a character. Overall, a fun, engaging read, but nothing earth-shattering.
Helga without the H 