Riotous. ( )

I know I am very late to the party on David Sedaris, as this is the first one of his I’ve ever read. And I know that people seem to really enjoy his books, but I just didn’t. There were a couple of decent moments, but they were neither laugh out loud nor darkly ironic like I expected them to be. I have another of his to read, but I’m not sure I will. Just not my cup of tea. ( )

Such a strange book. Much of it was really dull, but then there'd be bits where I laughed till the tears ran down my face. ( )

This book is in reality a series of short stories none of which despite what the blurb did I find "wildly entertaining", one or two made me smile slightly but most simply made me grimace. The first half of the book contains personal stories about his time in the US as a child whilst the second half is about his time living in France with his boyfriend and his struggles with the French language.

My biggest issue with this book is that I felt absolutely no sympathy for the guy. He seems rather self-centred and arrogant to me, in fact I felt more sorry for his family members for having to be related to him. I get some of the jokes that he tried to make, but a lot of the stories seemed simply bizarre to me. Probably it's better to hear these stories in an audio book, but even then I'm not convinced that I found him particularly interesting. Not for me. ( )

I didn't mind this book at all-- in fact, I read it cover to cover in a few hours. It was mostly interesting and well-written, and it definitely passed the time. But I'd been led to expect that Sedaris was piss-your-pants funny, and it turned out not to be the case for me. Guess Bill Bryson is secure in his place! ( )