Funny, cute, and complicated.

Just like the real McSweeney's: often pretentious, occasionally hit-or-miss, and overall hysterical.

OK admittedly I did get into the story and I kept reading to find out what other improbable things were going to happen. But as I read I could not stop being annoyed by the book's propagation of racist ideas. Like. Why did all of the white Southern characters speak in perfect English but even the most educated black characters speak in dialect? And also, all 10+ issues that tarnish the Help are true.

I mean I get why people are getting into this feel-good story of a white lady helping some black ladies. It's a feel good story, for white ladies!!

Also here is a GChat conversation I had with Emilia about this book.

me: have you read the help

Emilia: no
no and NEVER
i will kill it

me: yeah i just read it just to keep up with the hype or whatever
kind of wish i hadn't though because now when people talk about it i blurt out "that shit was mad racist yo"
which is alienating.

Emilia: yeah but
YO TRUE

YES!!!

I liked this more than I thought I would, TBH. It sounded like it was going to be an afterschool special-ish story about being transgender. But I thought it did a pretty good job explaining gender dsyphoria without being too preachy. Angela/Grady's family felt realistic. I liked Grady's friends from school, and I liked that Grady faced prejudice without it being overwhelmingly grim for him. I think this book would probably be great for any trans teen to read, or just anyone looking for some kind of trans representation in fiction.

You know, I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. I've never really watched the Real World, but I loved reading about Real World San Francisco in [b:A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius|4953|A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius|Dave Eggers|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1288880727s/4953.jpg|42857], and I thought the scene where Dave meets Judd was hilarious. So I kind of wanted to read this because I love Dave Eggers? But it was actually a really great memoir in its own right. Very honest and funny and sad, and an interesting look at what HIV/AIDS was like in America in the early 90s.

Again: really well-done audiobook, really treasured childhood book. Even though my prairie roadtrip is over, I want to go back and listen to all of these books. <3

This was a fun listen! Fast-faced and made me think a lot more about shoes than I have in a long time. Unfortunately, by making the book so very "cutting edge" when it came out, it's already a little dated. (When was the last time someone bragged about their cell phone having a camera?) Still, it's easy enough to get past that. I really enjoyed the analysis of "coolness."

Confession: I put off reading this until the day before it was due and I found that I could not renew it, so I read it under pressure! It was pretty funny. Some of the stories dragged (and so I found myself skimming past them quickly) but there's a good variety here and some of the stories were hilarious. I wish there had been more drawings and charts. Overall--pretty funny, but not as entertaining as his standup (as seems to be the case for most comedians who write books).

What the heck? Dave Barry used to be funny! (Didn't he?) My friend & I could not even make it through the first CD of this. Unoriginal and flat-out sexist. Full of oh-so-clever observations like the fact that men like to look at breasts and women get crazy when they're pregnant. Ha ha, don't cross a pregnant woman! Men, don't tell a pregnant woman her breasts have gotten bigger, because she is crazy! HILARIOUS