Me Talk Pretty One Day

Decently good plane read. Some of the essays crossed a few lines for me – too mean-spirited; too reliant on humiliation or caricature as a form of humor; too callous in their treatment of tricky subjects like the death of pets; too self-centered, puerile or generally grating. There's a fine line between being a clever satirist and being an unlikeable misanthrope, and Sedaris doesn't always quit while he's ahead.

I did laugh out loud while reading the titular essay, though. Repeatedly. And then went back and reread some of the better passages, which were, if anything, even funnier the second time. The series of essays that take place just after his move to France is absolute gold for anyone who's ever immersed themselves in a foreign language and culture.

Aside from those, my favorite essays were “A Shiner Like A Diamond” (which left me in absolute awe of Sedaris' sister) and then “Twelve Moments in the Life of an Artist” (which is admittedly pretty mean-spirited but IMO redeemed, at least in part, by both its self-deprecation and its sheer absurdity).