Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An impressively profane and funny memoir about life in restaurant kitchens. You can tell from his language and allusions that he's been hyper-educated (not just in food) though tries to put forward a bad-boy chef persona. I read this after Bourdain died and so there were some passages I found chilling and nearly prescient, but I can't make sense of his suicide at all.

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Dear Girls by Ali Wong

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is actually hilarious. She's no-holds-barred and often veers in grossness, but whatever, she is so funny. Also, she is the only other person I've ever heard of who had the exact same problem with the epidural on her first birth as me. (We both had no problems the second time so clearly it was the anesthesiologist.)

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We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. by Samantha Irby

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.: Essays by Samantha Irby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really like Samantha Irby as a person, but I didn't like this one as much as Meaty. Possibly because I felt like she took aim at my own personal lameness in this one. Haha. (Ex: I once didn't have a TV and would totally talk about how I did other things, just like Irby mocked. I have a TV now though. It even has Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney so I'm not acting snotty about not watching TV. Ha!)

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Meaty by Samantha Irby

Meaty by Samantha Irby
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Five stars for incredible raunchy entertainment value. It was also pretty interesting, touching, and funny. Irby is definitely smart and funny.

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Sakina's Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi

Sakina's Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was interesting and entertaining but I don't think it completely succeeded in being touching and funny like it was aiming to be.

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She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith

She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The central problem in this play is that Mr. Marlow believes himself to be too modest to speak to women of a high class. He states his trouble in this way, “[a]n impudent fellow may counterfeit modesty, but I’ll be hanged if a modest man can ever counterfeit impudence.” But we soon learn that he's a complete douchebag. But I think that's the point. Hilarity ensues! And it's actually pretty funny.

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Humorous Stories and Sketches by Mark Twain

Humorous Stories and Sketches by Mark Twain
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Most of these stories didn't pass the test of time, but I enjoyed "The Private History of a Campaign that Failed," about some Confederate soldiers who avoid fighting in the Civil War.

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My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is on the boundaries of fantasy because there is a very realistic reading of the book, but if you give in to the 7-year-old narrator, Elsa's point of view, which admittedly I did, then it's very much a fantasy book. It's just fun fantasy romp, and if it weren't for the somewhat silly drama at the end, it might be appropriate for kids as well, but what's silly to an adult, is unfortunately probably scary to a young reader.

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Marley and Me by John Grogan

Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book made me laugh out loud several times which is pretty rare even for books whose primary purpose is humor. We have a rescue lab mix and I was pleased to read about a dog that behaves worse than ours. I was glad that the author went the rescue route the second time around.

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The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning was really funny (and sad) but after about two thirds through I got tired of the characters not developing and their situation devolving. Lipsyte is very intelligent and witty, and kudos to you if you get all his jokes. I’m sure so many of his jokes went right over my head, but oh boy will you feel full of yourself when you get some of them. Ha! Ultimately, I thought Don, a minor character, was the most interesting, though I didn’t like the direction his story took. The plot is mostly just a vehicle for satire and who cares what happens to them anyway... not me.

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Hark by Sam Lipsyte

Hark by Sam Lipsyte
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The writing is good, and the subject of the book seemed like the exact sort of thing I’d love: an anti-modern-culture focus (mindfulness) guru turned unwilling cult leader. But the style was impossible for me to get past. I’m not a fan of absurdist ironic fiction such as that of Douglas Adams, but at least Adams’s writing has a light quality. This was absurdist and another reviewer used the word “caustic” and I can’t find a better word. The characters are real but the style makes them seem cartoonish at the same time. I don’t think I got anything from the book really.

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The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cute joint humor memoir. Definitely answers any questions you might have about Mullally and Offerman as a couple. Discusses their careers a little, but there's nothing in depth about their time on their most popular shows, Will and Grace and Parks and Rec.

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Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is my fourth Bryson book, and I really enjoyed the others, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Home, and A Walk in the Woods. This one felt less polished. I didn’t feel like I got a good sense of his travels, it was focused more on comedy, and the humor came off as aggressive or hostile throughout the book. I think part of the issue is that he wrote this book before the ones he wrote that I enjoyed. I think he must have improved a lot since this one.

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A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this! I've always thought I'd love to hike the Appalachian Trail (#bucketlist) but now I've been dissuaded. I actually appreciated that Bryson cheated quite a bit because I think that's what I'd prefer to do one day.

He went from Georgia to West Virginia, discussed Pennsylvania a bit, and then returned to the Northern part of the trail later. In general, I enjoyed the discussion of the Southern locations more, either because I am somewhat familiar with those locations, or because having actually hiked that part of the trail all at once, he gave it more color.

The book was very funny, especially some of his friend's jokes, but sometimes it was a little unnecessarily mean.

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The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! I laughed out loud, I cried, this was intense. I wasn’t familiar with Tiffany Haddish before. Apparently, I’m just not paying attention though because she’s in about a million movies. She has a special coming up on Netflix and I’m excited to see it.

Also, I love her friends!

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this book was funny, irreverent, and interesting. There was a lot of children's humor in the book, but I don't think it's a children's book- there was a lot of strange inappropriate things in it- more Young Adult.

Some things bothered me. Some of the language was offensive. There was a lot of inconsistency about how Junior looked and how unhealthy or healthy he was. Small spoiler: it especially bothered me that so many characters died and that Junior experienced his grief sort of in the middle of those deaths- so it gave the effect that the last death didn't affect him as much.

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Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna

Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What is going on here? Is this supposed to be Shel Silverstein for confused and sad college students? Maybe I've been caught off guard because I didn't know the author is a YouTube personality in advance? (I mostly only ever look at BookTube, live news feeds, or late night comedy on YouTube.)

Some of the poems have value as a humorous or silly way to describe the confusion of your 20s or the millennial experience. Even these seem pretty unpolished. Who is the audience for self-deprecating silly poems? Then all of the sudden there are "serious" unhumourous poems. In many of these, Hanna overshoots a lot. Here's just one example, the poem about divorce-- missed the mark by a lot. Probably would have been better to work on a smaller number of good poems rather than 170-something quickly written poems.


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Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tongue-in-cheek spy novel that gets a bit dark and more exciting as it goes on. Graham Greene is a confusing author for me because he wrote one of my favorite literary works, The End of the Affair, but his writing isn't limited to literary fiction, and The Third Man, for example, is just some noir nonsense. This was sort of in between but I did enjoy it.

I was especially interested in the pre-Castro Cuban setting. My family is from Cuba, and around this time my grandparents would have been in their 20s. My paternal side moved to Santa Clara at about the time of the story (the main character James Wormold goes there on vacation). My maternal side moved to Havana shortly after the time period of the novel. All Cuban-Americans are devoutly anti-Castro but the sacrilegious question is always whether the dictator that preceded him, Batista, was also a bad guy. This makes the character Segura particularly interesting to me, especially since Greene doesn't make him as one-dimensional as it initially appears.

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Gork, the Teenage Dragon by Gabe Hudson

Gork, the Teenage Dragon by Gabe Hudson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I like fantasy, science fiction, and children's books (among other genres) so there is nothing that would predict I wouldn't like this book. It reminded me a bit of Riordan's Percy Jackson books, which I mostly like. There were also some unique ideas in the book, and I highlighted some of my favorites below. Unfortunately, the writing felt really childish. In most places, it felt like an actual kid or teen wrote it. At the same time, I don't think the book would actually be appropriate for a young kid because of the extreme violence and constant sexual references. So that's tough.

Quotes/Ideas I liked:

"Nobody knows exactly how big Scale Island is, in part because the island has time tendrils that extend into different dimensions. According to my grandpa Dr. Terrible, the island also has a bunch of wormholes floating all over it."

"...they prefer to inhabit several dimensions at once."

"...every cadet in their first semester at WarWings is required to take a History of the Future course, which outlines in brutal detail the Rise of the Machines and the enslavement of Normal dragons. This History of the Future course is part of the core curriculum, and the professors who teach it have shot up the timestream and witnessed firsthand the destruction of our species by the machines."

"Fribby is completely obsessed with dying. She’s one of the first organic robots that was hatched in an artificial egg, and she’s one of the first machines that can technically die. So Fribby is forever talking about dying..."

"Poetry as a weapon."

"... grandpa taught a special weeklong intensive seminar here at WarWings called 'I Win, You Die: The Art of Brokering the Diabolical Deal.'"

"We’re the only military academy in the galaxy whose campus extends to the Underworld and whose curriculum prepares cadets for battling and conquering hideous creatures and spirits from the Realm of the Dead."

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Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw

Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Love all the feminism in this book, and it was funny and charming. Mostly it was little pointless and pretty harsh on marriage. It's easy to dismiss marriage if you've never had a good one.

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