Only one of the bookclub members had heard of this author prior to reading this book. From the views voiced during the meeting i have to say i don't think anyone will be picking up another of his books. We were all really disappointed at the complete lack of laugh out loud moments we were promised from the book jacket reviews. Having said that we did have a few laughs when we were discussing the funnier moments during the meeting. Maybe the way that Sedaris writes just isn't funny enough, even though the things he's writing about actually are pretty funny.
We had a discussion about whether we felt the book was self-mocking or whether Sedaris actually does feel he's much better than everyone else. While looking at this we tried to think about how different nationalities would feel about the book. We came to the conclusion that as Europeans we find it a bit snide, however, Americans may find it quite offensive.
We enjoyed that short story aspect to the book, but felt that there are some much better examples, for example Mrs Bridges. The little snapshots of Sedaris' life were easy to pick up and put down because they really didn't flow on from one another. This could be seen as a positive if you only had a little time to read, and also a negative as nothing really seemed to connect.
There was one element which we found really interesting, that of the performance artist who has his assistant shoot him in the arm. The only reason for this was that this also appeared in the Family Fang book we read earlier in the year. Apparently this did actually happen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Burden.
Overall we gave this book 4 out of 10.
We had a discussion about whether we felt the book was self-mocking or whether Sedaris actually does feel he's much better than everyone else. While looking at this we tried to think about how different nationalities would feel about the book. We came to the conclusion that as Europeans we find it a bit snide, however, Americans may find it quite offensive.
We enjoyed that short story aspect to the book, but felt that there are some much better examples, for example Mrs Bridges. The little snapshots of Sedaris' life were easy to pick up and put down because they really didn't flow on from one another. This could be seen as a positive if you only had a little time to read, and also a negative as nothing really seemed to connect.
There was one element which we found really interesting, that of the performance artist who has his assistant shoot him in the arm. The only reason for this was that this also appeared in the Family Fang book we read earlier in the year. Apparently this did actually happen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Burden.
Overall we gave this book 4 out of 10.
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