Book Review | Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris


I seem to have a special place in my heart for people who tend to write about the shadow side of humanity without making it appear as if it belongs to either one of the “academically-neat” or “sinfully bad” categories. To me, these are some of the best kind of people in the world. And “Me Talk Pretty One Day” was one of these books that evoked this familiar feeling within me through its handsomly-crafted set of words.

It was a total amusement to read this book, which I started reading the first time during May 2016, and finished only to this day. It was a delight, undoubtedly, to have stumbled upon this book.

This book comes with a series of personal essays divided into several chapters falling in two parts. A perfect sense of comic storytelling and plenty of quirky metaphors, starting from the police agent to the shampoo cocktail, the words are finely stitched together with the string of emotional depth and realness of life experience.

At the end of the book, I am left with a baby laughter in my cheeks, and teardrops emerging in my throat – both at the same time.

Through this book, Mr. Sedaris seems to have gifted me hundreds of moments, commonly connecting, to curate together and build something out of these. Precisely, he shook up the hillybilly inside me!

I think, when you’d read this book, you’ll find it absolutely humorous at first, however, when you’d stop reading it or if you take a break to drink some water, to eat something, to rest or to read the next chapter the following day, you’d find yourself getting really emotional about it in the gap that follows long after the reading has been done and long after the chapter has been finished. Ponderings are to be done, desserts are to be eaten, ink pens are to be taken out of the drawers and some trees are to be taken down in the form of notebook papers. Period.


View all my reviews