Book Reivew | Rating – 3/5 | Genre – Nonfiction/Comedy
So, it has been a while since I’ve written any reviews for books, having been dealing with some mental health issues. Now i’m back and ready to delve back into reviewing books I’ve been reading this year. We’ll start off here, with a book I got for my birthday last year.
Having been introduced to David Sedaris by my Grandad, I found myself enjoying his writing style after reading, “Me Talk Pretty One Day“. Which is why I wanted to give this one a go…
For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing.
Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me” in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird. (Check it out here).
What did I think?
Having gone back through past reviews I always seem to preface these reviews by stating that I don’t tend to lean towards non-fiction books, which I think I’ve pretty much-hammered home at this point. I think for me, I can now safely say that they just aren’t books for me, and won’t normally rank highly for me. This was another of those books where I kind of lost the love of reading it towards the end.
My struggle with this book didn’t come with criticism of David Sedaris’ writing style. If anything, his style is the reason I continued to read this for as long as I did. His sense of humour is something that really resonates with me, and brings a warm understanding to the stories he is relaying.
Where I started to lose interest in the book was in the general layout of the book. Yes, it’s nonfiction and explores his life experiences, but I found myself getting lost in what he was talking about, having bounced back and forth between his childhood and his adult life.
Reasons why you should read The Best of Me…
- Writing style: what makes David Sedaris’ writing so interesting is his easy wit. Even the most mundane story comes with a sarcastic edge, dryly commenting on the everday.
At the end of the day…
I would say that David Sedaris’ books are made for people who enjoy speculative humour. He so easily details the everyday lives of normal people, yet makes it so much more interesting with his sarcastic and dry jokes.
I’m thinking that I might have to take it easy on the nonfiction books for now, having found myself really not enjoying them. I’ll most likely step back into this area if I come across a book that I would genuinely want to read.
The Next Big Opinion 