Me Talk Pretty One Day - A Review

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

Funny stuff. Sedaris has a writing style that keeps things from getting boring. Topics covered include: his father, his sisters, his brother, living in Raleigh and New York city, taking guitar lessons from a midget, various pets (mostly dogs), jobs as a writing teacher and a mover, drugs, art, learning to speak French, and his relationship with his boyfriend.

Occasionally, he would make contradictory statements. Like he'd make a broad generalization, then talk about something that doesn't fit the generalization, as though he never made the generalization. I also think he wrote a bit too much about learning French. The 27 chapters are separated into two sections, and I found the first section to be better: funnier, more interesting.

His living room contained nothing but an enormous nest made of human hair.

That was the scary part, that someone understood me.

Use the word "y'all", and before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack, French-kissing an underage goat.

It was my understanding that communists preferred beefy, corn-fed girls with thick ankles and strong backs, all the better for threshing wheat and lugging heavy sacks of rice.

A transfer student, by the end of her first day she'd raised her hand so many times that her shoulder had given out. Now she just leaned back and shouted out the answers, her bronzed arms folded across her chest like some great grammar genie.

Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own.

In imagining myself as modest, mysterious, and fiercely intelligent, I'm forced to realize that, in real life, I have none of these qualities.

Rating: 4 stars of 5. 

(originally posted in May 2016, on Goodreads)