David Sedaris

Hello!

               So in this post I’m going to talk about a book that was recommended to me. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris is both a genre and a style that I’ve never read before, so it was pretty different for me.

               First my brother Michael, who is 23, recommended the book to me almost a year ago, saying it would “change my life.” I didn’t believe him until I read a few pages of the most recent Sedaris book, which I got him for Christmas. It was really, really good, and inspired me to read some more of his books – for approximately 45 minutes. I wasn’t reminded of my desire to read the books until I saw a few copies of them in my AP Lang and Comp classroom, which I promptly borrowed from my teacher.

               That was Friday. I finished Me Talk Pretty One Day around noon on Saturday. It was pretty darn amazing. Sedaris doesn’t write novels, but writes a bunch of essays and then puts them together and publishes the whole mess. I haven’t really read anything like that before, but it was actually pretty good.  

               Then my biggest plus for the book was that it was really, really, really, really funny. Those four repetitions of “funny” were necessary because Me Talk Pretty One Day was that awesome. It was refreshing to read an essay that was actually fun to read, as compared to Annie Dillard’s essays. I was kept interested throughout the entire four hundred pages of essays, whereas I could barely stay interested in the two pages of “Transformations” by Dillard.

               On to the actual content of the book, though. Sedaris is a pretty interesting character, which makes his essays interesting because he’s writing about his personal experiences. He writes a little bit about his time growing up, his parents, his experience attending art school twice, his time working as a moving guy, his time in France, learning French, and working on a house. Although it sounds kind of random, it all makes sense in context.

               So all in all, I’d say I wasn’t disappointed with Me Talk Pretty One Day at all. In fact, I definitely plan on reading all of David Sedaris’ stuff, and have already bought another book of his. I don’t think  it reached “life-changing” status, but it did open my eyes to a new genre of writing, which I like.