This book has a little history for me. Clare read it in high school as a project — they were to read a book from a list of books and write an essay explaining why the book they read should be put in a time capsule to explain to future generations what this generation was like.

I’d never heard of David Sedaris when she was reading this (must have missed his name when he did his segments on NPR or something) and when she told me the name of the book I was appalled. Making fun of people who cannot talk well? What on earth was her English teacher thinking? Clare assured me it was not making fun of anyone with a lisp or stutter, but didn’t explain any more.

I finally discovered David Sedaris and have read several of his books, and love hearing him on NPR whenever I catch him. This was great — slightly dated, but great.

He comes to this area quite a bit (we were going to see him a few months ago but regretfully changed our minds at the last moment) and I have always planned on telling him the story about Clare reading his book and my reaction when he signs a book for me someday. He might get a kick out of it.

Oh my god this was a terrible book. Funny in parts, but disgusting otherwise. The film was slightly better.

It was a book group read and pretty much the entire group hated it — except for the poor woman who chose it.

This one was a library book — part of a program that allowed the book to be borrowed with no restrictions (anyone could borrow it during a certain time without worrying about putting it on hold). Since it was about time travel I read it.

It was not very well written, and geared towards a young adult audience. That said, I learned a little bit about the Berlin wall. The book had a very unsatisfactory ending — although there was a clue at the beginning that the author needed to point out that sort of gave closure to the book.

I don’t plan on reading her other books in the series.