Ricky

The latter sections of this book are so bad I kind of want to give this book one star, but I kind of really liked the book to start off. honestly, all of these books I've been reading lately by millennials have me afraid of the future of culture. they're also self-absorbed and overwrought. serving hardcore team too much vibes.

I know relationships where people have broken up because somebody got a pet without consulting their partner. This author presents the ex-boyfriend as unreasonable or somehow uncaring because he's mad that his boyfriend adopted a child without consulting with him. just one of many examples of how this book reads very much like it was written by a woman who may or may not be in need of therapy, presumably to work on the family issues she's always referring to and the seething resentment about an ex-partner. It is always funny to imagine a parallel universe where gay people act the way they do in books written by women. Anyway as far as Christmas themed romance novels go, this one feels kind of heavy. I feel like all of these people are really annoying and need a lot of therapy. It's just pages and pages and pages of people being angry and resentful, but mixed up with annoying stories about the joys of parenting. This certainly isn't the first time I've felt like gay romance novels aren't really about gay men at all but about heterosexual women working through their own baggage, but I don't think it's ever been as bare as it is in this book. It's so weird. I don't know, maybe I'm being harsh, but I should have probably just put this book down at a certain point.

Once I got into the story I thought it was hilarious. The stories are fascinating. Not having really ever studied American History, I had some idea of the conditions surrounding Lincoln's assassination, naturally, but had no clue as to what was up with Garfield and McKinley. My interest in American history was already on the uptick but this may have propelled it into full swing!

I always kind of lumped her in with David Sedaris because of her cute stories on THIS AMERICAN LIFE (which might be better than his– ssh!) but when I heard her on FRESH AIR talking about her book THE WORDY SHIPMATES I was rather impressed at the way she melds THIS=AMERICAN-LIFE-quirkiness with an impressive depth of knowledge.