Karen
I love to read advice columns, so I was pretty sure I'd enjoy this book. I didn't know anything about Dear Sugar or The Rumpus, but I was right, I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the way Sugar would answer her letter writer's question with a story from her own life, and the way that story's relevance was often not what I expected it to be (somewhat like a parable). And, of course, I enjoyed reading the letter writer's story too. It's all about the stories, and there were some doozies in this book.
I'm not sure I would have enjoyed writing a letter to Dear Sugar and having it answered the way she usually did, though. I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed being called "sweet pea," "darling," and "honey bun." And I might not have liked having my heartfelt question responded to with a detailed story from the advice columnist's life. It feels self involved. The times when it bugged me the most were the times when she described her own reactions to the story from her life and then told her letter writers that that would be their experience as well. That was misguided. In many cases, I think the advice she gives in this book is wise and humane, but it might have been better to leave out the lengthy stories about herself, or at least make them less lengthy. But had she done that, the book would have been a lot less fun to read. So, I'm ambivalent.
I love to read advice columns, so I was pretty sure I'd enjoy this book. I didn't know anything about Dear Sugar or The Rumpus, but I was right, I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the way Sugar would answer her letter writer's question with a story from her own life, and the way that story's relevance was often not what I expected it to be (somewhat like a parable). And, of course, I enjoyed reading the letter writer's story too. It's all about the stories, and there were some doozies in this book.
I'm not sure I would have enjoyed writing a letter to Dear Sugar and having it answered the way she usually did, though. I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed being called "sweet pea," "darling," and "honey bun." And I might not have liked having my heartfelt question responded to with a detailed story from the advice columnist's life. It feels self involved. The times when it bugged me the most were the times when she described her own reactions to the story from her life and then told her letter writers that that would be their experience as well. That was misguided. In many cases, I think the advice she gives in this book is wise and humane, but it might have been better to leave out the lengthy stories about herself, or at least make them less lengthy. But had she done that, the book would have been a lot less fun to read. So, I'm ambivalent.