25. Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel - Gary Shteyngart - 352p
Pub date: July 27 - 5/5 stars, review behind the link. Amazing book. If you are so inclined, I could use some "helpful" votes on my Amazon review.
26. Motherless Brooklyn - (6/26) - Jonathan Lethem 311p
3/5
What I learned from this book:
- I don't think I would enjoy hanging out with someone who has Tourette's
- Jonathan Lethem loves the word Echolalia
Lethem is a good writer, and I like the neuroses of his characters, but this book didn't do much for me. As a detective story, it was weak. As any kind of story it was kind of weak actually. I didn't dislike it, I didn't love it. It was just sort of "meh."
Obviously, the the main character has Tourette's, and I think perhaps that bit may have been just a tinge overdone. And as Harris overused the word "cantrip" in The Girl with No Shadow, this book had the word "tic" more than I've ever seen in any book. It was almost ticcish in its use of tic. A tic of tics. Tictacular. Tic-Tock. Hickory Dickory Dock. Hickory smoked bacon. (Yep, it was like that.)
I'm just not sure that this book would inspire me to read any Lethem in the future.
Audio
6. When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
3/5 stars
I have to say that I've really tried to like David Sedaris books, and they don't do much for me. Generally, I find maybe two or three of the stories funny and the rest filler. I decided to try this one on audio.
I love that he reads his own book. He doesn't have a fabulous DJ voice, but his quirky voice is perfect for his quirky stories, and as a result the inflections were in all the right places. There were some travel stories in here, which I found funniest. There were times when he was reading aloud to an audience, and those always tended to be funnier. I'm not sure if he just picked his best stories for the live recordings, or if having an audience made the telling more entertaining.
Anyway, I wouldn't have read this, but listening to it was fine.
My complete list can be found here
