David Sedaris is not as funny as he thinks he is…

David Sedaris, The Santaland Diaries 
Look, I have to be upfront here:  I hate Sedaris’ fiction.  Like, really and truly hate it.  I don’t have any real rational reason for hating it–I just do.  His nonfiction, while snarky and bitchy and occasionally mean, has some heart to it:  I mean, he writes about his family a lot, and [...]

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Not like your care, but…

It’s not that I haven’t been reading; I’ve been reading.  Dear God, have I ever been reading.  I’ve read so much that I kind of hate books right now.
Some things that I’ve read:
Angela Nissel, Mixed. 
David Sedaris, Holidays on Ice
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
Josephine Tey, The Franchise Affair
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
Not to mention that delightful [...]

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In which I despise another acclaimed author

Jane Smiley, Duplicate Keys
I have read exactly one other book by Jane Smiley:  her slice o’ campus life novel Moo.  I was a senior in high school at the time and didn’t know jack shit about “the college experience,” so the allure of a university novel completely escaped me; in the end, I finished Moo [...]

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Princess Mia

Meg Cabot, Princess Mia 
I went to the optometrist the Saturday before last, and not only did they fail to actually replace my lenses, they also snapped my glasses in half.  For the record, I do not wear contacts.  Also, I cannot see half a foot in front of my face without some sort of corrective [...]

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The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle
This memoir can be summed up thusly:  Worst.  Childhood.  Ever.
Well, okay.  Bastard out of Carolina gives it a run for its money, but seriously.
This is the story of Walls’ childhood, which was spent either bouncing around the Western states or being stuck in a small West Virginia town.  Her father was an [...]

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If You Like Pina Colodas…

Gina Kolata, Rethinking Thin:  The New Science of Weight Loss–and the Myths and Realities of Dieting
Okay, this author’s name completely cracks me up, because in my head (where it matters), it rhymes with pina coloda and I’M REALLY EASILY AMUSED, OKAY?!
Anyway, I saw this on one of the fat acceptance blogs I read–I can’t remember [...]

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Extras

Scott Westerfeld, Extras
The fourth book in the Uglies series–a series that I love and adore, by the way.  Uglies is about a post-apocolyptic world in which everyone gets extensive plastic surgery when they turn sixteen:  they “turn pretty,” as Westerfeld puts it.  Unfortunately, they also turn stupid–because why not make people silly and compliant while you’re [...]

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