Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David SedarisI found this collection of autobiographical essays to be a little bit hit-or-miss. Generally, there would be at least one or two funny moments per essay, but there would also usually also be one or two things that I felt could just as well have been left out. If something's not funny and doesn't contribute much to the anecdote at hand, be ruthless and rip it right off the page. (I guess the problem is that the author and editor(s) thought those boring, troubling, and/or irrelevant bits were funny or somehow important. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. As they say.)
I selected this as read-aloud (with Donald) material, not realizing that it would contain quite so much cursing as it does. Considering that I'm simply not comfortable cursing very heartily (especially "in cold blood"), this led to a lot of bleeping during the reading. In most of the essays, there are only a few bleeps-- and then there was the essay about the author's brother, who calls himself "the Rooster"...
All in all, this book wasn't the sort I'd recommend without reservations to just anyone, but I can't deny that some of it made us laugh, so I'm willing to try another book of essays by Sedaris-- particularly since the reviews I've read indicate that this may not have been his very best work.
Note: I'm labeling this as non-fiction, though there seems to have been some embroidering in spots (based on reviews). I'm assuming there's enough basis in fact to make the "non-fiction" label apt. It certainly doesn't feel like a cohesive work of fiction or a collection of short stories, so non-fiction it is!
