As a piece of art, I have to give it to Dave Eggers. AHBWOSG is carefully composed, wonderfully constructed, funny, poignant, and moving. But it’s also a pile of emotional bullshit that took me ages to read, and I couldn’t get away from it fast enough once I had inhaled the last intentionally-breakneck run-on paragraph. I have now moved on, immediately and purposefully, to “Men Explain Things to Me.” But back to the “Staggering Genius,” which is a memoir, slightly fictionalized, as Eggers explains […]
I’m a Survivor: A Memoir of Abuse
While Why Me? is a harrowing retelling of Sarah Burleton’s mother’s abuse, the snapshot structure of this memoir lacked a narrative thread that would allow for emotionality on the part of the reader. As is, I felt like a voyeur–a powerless one–who stood aghast but still engrossed. Read the full review.
“Live by lies”
I really liked the writing style of this book, probably even more than the content. Nordlinger has a very casual way of communicating with the reader, and throws in some occasional (usually dark) humor as well. His mission, as he lays out in the introduction, is to examine the children and grandchildren of 20 dictators that rule or ruled in the 19th and 20th centuries. He explains that many of these people are shrouded in mystery, so some of his research has holes, but overall, I […]
Thank you for being a friend
I’ve never seen Golden Girls; Rue McClanahan’s autobiography was brought to my attention through the series of algorithms that comprise Goodreads and despite my ignorance of McClanahan’s body of work it was a pretty decent read. I found a few similarities between Rue’s story and Penny Marshall’s. Both women got married young, after getting pregnant and both women quickly divorced the father’s of their children; Rue was a little bit older than Penny but both women came to prominence in the late 70s/ early 80s- […]
Memoir. Fashion. Not for me.
This was the March pick of my book club and I went into it with much trepidation. I don’t read a lot of memoirs, and I don’t care about fashion sooo take what I say with those grains of salt. I did NOT like this book. Here is the paragraph that I have selected to illustrate the reasons I didn’t like it. “Despite all the drama, the photograph he took of Tina lounging on the sofa surrounded by parasols was not modern at all. He […]
Marty’s Memoir
Martin Short is one of those people that, whether you’ve seen any of his work, you just know who he is. From his 80s heyday the only film I’ve seen is Three Amigos, which came out two years before I was born, but was a favorite of my father’s. He’s probably not the most famous/ recognizable face from his comedy class of Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, John Candy, Dan Akroyd etc but he has had a prolific career as someone willing to go the extra […]
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