Perhaps my favorite David Sedaris book that I have read so far. My favorite stories were “Now We’re Five”, “Little Guy”, “The Perfect Fit”, “Leviathan”, “A Modest Proposal”, “The Ones Who Got Away”, “Sorry”, and “A Number of Reasons I’ve Been Depressed Lately”.

I was completely engrossed by “Why Aren’t You Laughing?” and the second half of “The Spirit World”, which had an uncharacteristically serious tone. That mood was pervasive. Those stories were unsurprisingly well-written and incredibly poignant. They really moved me.

Where Sedaris’s essay collections always connect thematically, this book had really interesting narrative connections

(ie. his sister’s suicide, spiritualism / the supernatural, the lipoma and the snapping turtle, the Fitbit)

. Those elements contextualize his stories and imply thematic connections. I thought that that was really effective and compelling.

As always, there are some moments that I wish were edited out (some then-outdated, racist or ableist terms, for instance.) Frankly it is often a handful of words or phrases that pull down my rating with David Sedaris.