A Review of 'Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls' by David Sedaris

Note: I am working on finishing reviews for books that I read last year.  I'm almost done and reviews for 2017 reads will be published shortly!

"A guy walks into a bar car and...

From here the story could take many turns.  When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved.

Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called 'hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving' (Washington Post)."

I have read a few stories by David Sedaris and honestly... I can't quite get a read on him.  He's such a character.  His sense of humor always manages to take me by surprise.

This book is a series of short stories about some of the experiences he has had in his life from living abroad to experiencing his first colonoscopy.  Even stories that seem like they might be gross end up being incredibly funny!  But maybe you just have to have the humor of an elementary school boy at times... and I think that's in all of us, even a little bit.

What really caught me off guard was when I could relate to what David Sedaris was saying.  It just seems like we're worlds apart in terms of our identities and our bodies of experience.  Maybe that goes to show that even those who seem like you wouldn't get along or you could never find something in common... there's always a similarity to find.  We're not so different after all.

It's hard to review a book of short stories because all of the stories are so different from each other.  And not all of the stories seem to be in David Sedaris' voice which really threw me off while I was reading.  There was a point where he wrote a narrative of a very politically conservative person (I think a woman, but I don't think I realized that until the end) who was up on her soap box ranting about a little of everything.  The nice thing about his stories are that he never fails to keep your attention and more importantly, keep you on your toes while you read.

This is a great read for those who are looking for a lighter (in tone) read, who appreciate good humor writing, or if you just want to read some off-the-wall writing.

I give 'Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls':

 1/2

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude