A review by alexblackreads
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
3.0
This is I believe my second David Sedaris book (plus a number of random essays I've read online) and I was the tiniest bit disappointed in this book. For starters, it wasn't bad. It definitely wasn't bad. Sedaris is a good writer and even when I don't like his stuff as much, I still think it's well written. But I just wasn't all that interested in this book.
I think one of my issues was how short the essays were in this book. They felt much too short, like they were too short to have much purpose. And short essays aren't inherently bad, but half the time I felt like I was getting a quick overview of a story with no discussion or depth. I always felt like I needed more than what I was given.
Also, perhaps because I read this book so quickly, it felt a little over the top. Like there's no way all of these ridiculous and somewhat absurd situations could have happened to one person in a lifetime. Either he's lived quite a ridiculous life, or a number of these are made up/exaggerated to some degree. And considering in one of the essays he talked about how his friends/significant other were complaining about how he exaggerated stories, I'm kind of leaning toward the latter there. Which I don't mind super much. It honestly doesn't bother me that much when I get the vibe that the nonfiction book I'm reading isn't a hundred percent sticking to the truth (unless it's meant to be informative/academic/science based/etc). But for a subjective memoir, sure tell an interesting story. It was just that these stories weren't all that interesting.
This book is fading quickly, which is disappointing to me. I'm hoping to continue reading Sedaris and hopefully this one was just a bit of a fluke.
I think one of my issues was how short the essays were in this book. They felt much too short, like they were too short to have much purpose. And short essays aren't inherently bad, but half the time I felt like I was getting a quick overview of a story with no discussion or depth. I always felt like I needed more than what I was given.
Also, perhaps because I read this book so quickly, it felt a little over the top. Like there's no way all of these ridiculous and somewhat absurd situations could have happened to one person in a lifetime. Either he's lived quite a ridiculous life, or a number of these are made up/exaggerated to some degree. And considering in one of the essays he talked about how his friends/significant other were complaining about how he exaggerated stories, I'm kind of leaning toward the latter there. Which I don't mind super much. It honestly doesn't bother me that much when I get the vibe that the nonfiction book I'm reading isn't a hundred percent sticking to the truth (unless it's meant to be informative/academic/science based/etc). But for a subjective memoir, sure tell an interesting story. It was just that these stories weren't all that interesting.
This book is fading quickly, which is disappointing to me. I'm hoping to continue reading Sedaris and hopefully this one was just a bit of a fluke.