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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Looking for humor, finding little, Jun 30 2003
Wanting and expecting to enjoy "Naked" may have been an explanation as to why I did not enjoy this book. My naiveté."Naked" reads like P.J. O'Rourke's adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' "American Psycho". While O'Rourke is intelligent and insightful with his biting sarcasm and wit, Sedaris was simply dark and at times, cruel and mean, without the insight. His first chapter, "Chipped beef," showed some promise. But by the second, "A plague of tics," about a young boy with obsessive-compulsive disorder of a serious magnitude, I was nervously squirming, hoping that these were but rough spots. But then he moved to dumping on his grandmother, Ya-Ya ("Get your Ya-Ya's out"), and it became much more difficult to continue. Poor grandmothers. As if age alone was not cruel. Why have an ungrateful grandson to add to the trouble? His fourth chapter, "Next of kin" did not revive my hopes for some humor. Perhaps it was funny but it was more perverted than humorous. His next chapter, "Cyclops," opens with, "When he was young my father shot out his best friend's eye with a BB gun." Pretty grim. Within a page, it becomes internecine, as "my sister Tiffany stabbed me in the eye with a freshly sharpened pencil." Then the father gives the story an even more perverted twist. The next chapter, "The Women's Open" was an improvement. For better, funny dark humor, I recommend Martin Amis, Joseph Heller or the aforementioned O'Rourke.
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by David Sedaris
by David Sedaris
by David Sedaris
by David Sedaris
by David Sedaris
