I had no idea what this book was about??? I can't believe this is what this is?????

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-61-the-bridges-of-madison-county/

This book is legit hilarious, literal-LOL worthy. (As you could probably guess if you're familiar with Phoebe Robinson's comedy--although I am too often disappointed by comedians' books. Not here!)

It's a great mix of personal stories, essays about working in comedy, black American culture...all very funny and also very timely. I read this just before the election and I'm curious to what it would be like to read it afterwards. There's a letter in this from John Hodgman where he refers to the election and says that when you're reading this, perhaps Trump is the president or "superking"...it was so funny in early November 2016...so funny.

PS A certain brand of crotchety reader might frown disapprovingly at the chat speak and hashtags littered throughout this book, but whatever, it's not for you.

This was a funny and at times heart-wrenching memoir. Guerrero (and her ghostwriter) have a very breezy, cas tone throughout, even when discussing her parents' deportation when she was age 14. It's a great case study in how screwed up our immigration system can be--Diane was born in the US, so she's a citizen, but when her parents were deported, no one in the system knew that they'd essentially abandoned an orphan in the US. She was able to stay with friends and finish high school, but it's chilling to think about children being left behind with no support system. Guerrero also writes about dealing with learning disabilities and mental illness/suicidal thoughts. Finally, she ends on an uplifting note with her TV success and getting involved with activism for immigration reform, including a charming recollection of her visit to the White House.

(somewhat tragically, she also actively encourages young readers to get out there and vote because some of the candidates in 2016 have horrifiying plans for immigration...sorry D we dropped the ball there)

Recommended for fans of Diane Guerrero's acting work and/or anyone looking to put a human face to undocumented immigration! At our library we have this in our teen collection and I think it's great for teen readers--much of the story is about her teen years and I think it would be very relatable to kids panicking about college, etc even if they didn't have her additional layers of stress.

man I loved this!! So sweet and funny.

Also I loved how it covertly shows microaggressions and the importance of representation--Sophie is half white, half Latina and she notes how the librarian is super nice to her because she originally assumed that Sophie was the daughter of a farm laborer, rather than the daughter of the family who inherited the farm; Sophie is super excited when she meets a Filipina journalist who speaks Spanish...it's all organic to the story but it's something that could be a lightbulb moment for some readers.

Also you might learn a surprising amount about actual chickens from this book?

This is like a pretty fine cookbook? Needs more #herbs though. mainly recommended to a devoted Outlander fan who is not a vegetarian.

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-62-outlander-kitchen/

I kept re-reading the Wikipedia summary for WicDiv while reading this, which is partly because it had been a long time since I read vol 2 and I didn't remember, and then partly because I think this is meant to be...disjointed? I think it's fun that there are different authors and artists for each of this and I get what it was doing, but probably a more devoted WicDiv fan would get more out of this than I did.

This didn't crush my spirit completely the way [b:The Christmas Sweater|3268926|The Christmas Sweater|Glenn Beck|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442052035s/3268926.jpg|3132696] did, but also...why

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-63-the-immortal-nicholas/

I had high hopes for this because of how much I loved the Lunar Chronicles! I will say that I loved this...less. I like, but don't love, Alice in Wonderland so I suspect there were some references in here that went over my head, but also, these books had the opposite issue as the Lunar Chronicles for me--with those, I was like, "Ahh I know this is based on a fairy tale that has a happy ending but I just don't see how it's possibly going to get there!" But somehow those books were all really suspenseful to me! With this I was like "oh but...she ends up the queen, though..."

IDK there was a lot of hand-wringing basically. There were some unexpected twists in the ending that I appreciated, and I think fans of tragic love stories and/or Alice in Wonderland devotees will probably like this more than I did.

CW: a lot of food/body shaming from Cath (aka the future Queen of Hearts)'s mother...

fun fact: when I checked this out I had it confused with [b:When the Moon Was Ours|28220826|When the Moon Was Ours|Anna-Marie McLemore|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1454598349s/28220826.jpg|48249481] and I spent like, the first half of it being pretty confused about how different it was from all the reviews I read of it...

IDK, this was very good and beautiful too but honestly I was so thrown by thinking it was a different book! Which is obviously nobody's fault but my own but seriously cramped my reading of it tbh.

So that's my professional advice, if you are going to read this book make sure you know which book it is.

This was overall a really fun, interesting read. I was a huge Daily Show fan in college (...who wasn't?) and I especially liked reading all the background on those kind of peak years. Like, obviously a lot of work went into those episodes, but I definitely didn't realize HOW much, or how innovative TDS was with their clip-pulling techniques. (That kind of stuff might only be interesting to a certain flavor of nerd, idk.)

There was also some level of "oh no, I didn't want to see that sausage getting made"--I was actually moderately upset reading about some of the big fights and fallings-out of various TDS staff. I (naively, I know) just wanted to think of them all getting along and being BFFs!! :(

Still, I enjoyed feeling like I was getting to know these people, especially a lot of behind the scenes people whose names I didn't know before but were hugely influential on the show. I even enjoyed reading about the goings-ons after I mostly stopped watching the show, and also on the influence TDS had on other shows and even on actual political events.

I'd definitely recommend this to people who really love(d) the Daily Show.