How do you review books that are basically someone else’s life narrative? Fat Girl Walking is Brittany Gibbon’s story, and her owning her story. I respect that, and feel no desire to take it to task. In fact, the writing is crisp and the humor sarcastic. There is little I can point to as flawed other than a few instances of casual ableism. I just didn’t like it. And since I rate by the Goodreads system, that means this book gets a single star. Perhaps […]
A Kafkaesque Nightmare
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”– George Orwell, 1984 Ben Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” It’s a sentiment this country has been at odds with since its inception, from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, […]
To All the Men I’ve Loved Before
When my local paper reviewed “Dear Mr. You” by Mary-Louise Parker, the reviewer compared Parker’s writing to Anne Lamott. Since Lamott is possibly my favorite writer I thought “Dear Mr. You” would be a good place to start my Cannonball Read. From what I understand, a friend of Parker’s submitted the book to various publishers without disclosing Parker as the author so I would assume it was published on its own merits. And it is an interesting book. Written as a series of letters to 34 men […]
He Feels Bad About His Feet
I will forever associate Michael Ian Black with “The State.” Even though we didn’t have MTV for long when I was in high school, I have very strong memories of watching the show and loving it. I own the DVDs (yup, actual, physical, non-Blu-Ray DVDs), and thanks to Mr. Black I can clearly describe to you what $240 worth of pudding looks like. I now follow Mr. Black on Twitter, which is how I found out about his new book. I was looking for something […]