Rating: 
Summary: A good example of how not to write a story
Review: I heard an interview with David Sedaris' sister. She talked a lot about David and this book. It sounded great, so I picked it up that day. I anticipated a raw and witty story revealing the oddness of family life. However, what I got was a rant.I can accept that it is not a novel, but a bunch of random thoughts. Still, I like to be compelled to at least read the next word. But, I found my self predicting the next line and trudging through the pages. Whatever happened to character building? Who cares about these people? Lots of us have stories like these tucked away in our families (what not you?). Anyway, my point is that David Sedaris attempts ONLY to talk pretty. I can just picture him throwing words together and then sitting back with a grin saying, "Oh yeah, I'm a laugh riot." Don't waste your precious time.
Rating: 
Summary: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Review: Me Talk Pretty One Day is a refreshing collection of poignant and hilarious stories. Sedaris' self-deprecating humor is as complex as it is universal. His stories revolve around the things we all love to make fun of most: family, friends and ourselves. He writes primarily about these subjects against the back-drops of North Carolina, France and New York City. Although the transition between locations is abrupt, the collection of stories is held together by Sedaris' quirky humor and wonderful story-telling.
The reader is lead through intimate stories of Sedaris' bizarre and often painful life by his equally bizarre and candid mind. It is as if you have stolen his diary and are huddled in your closet reading it, trying desperately not to laugh. We all have funny family stories; Sedaris reminds us of them with accounts of his family. But I have to think he is being modest when he claimed in an interview that his family is not as strange as you would think. It is hard for any story about any brother to compete with You Can't Kill the Rooster in which he writes about his brother, an obscenity spewing, wanna be rapper from Raleigh. However vulgar his brother Paul is, Sedaris endearingly captures the relationship between his father and brother. Paul is described as "...both my father's best ally and worst nightmare. Here was a child who, by the time he had reached the second grade, spoke much like the toothless fisherman casting their nets into Albemarle Sound" (Sedaris 61).
In Shiner Like a Diamond Sedaris writes about his sister Amy who makes her attractive features grotesque: She is by far the most attractive member of the family, yet she spends most of her time and money disguising herself beneath prosthetic humps and appliqued skin diseases. She's got more neck braces and false teeth than she knows what to do with and her drawers and closets overflow with human hair. (Sedaris 137) In the same story Amy wears a "fatty" suit home for Christmas to frighten her father who is obsessed with his daughter's appearance and has her face painted with bruises and scars for a magazine shoot. In the Sedaris style Amy is not just weird and entertaining but also very lovable.
These family stories make up most of the first half of the collection. Due to his eccentricity, Sedaris' father is a favorite subject. In Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities he tries desperately to have his children form a jazz quartet. This of course results is a series of disappointments when each child eventually quits their assigned instrument. This story also includes a bit about Sedaris' dream to sing jingles in the voice of Billie Holiday which can be fully appreciated only when listening to the author read the story himself (this is an excellent book to listen to on tape). Sedaris' respect for his father comes out in Genetic Engineering, through a story about his work at IBM and his children's absolute disinterest in his job. In Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist Sedaris' father's naive humor is a welcome addition to an otherwise long-winded story. Through all the stories, his family threads its way through bittersweet memories and ridiculous situations with Sedaris' own blend of tender sarcasm.
The second half of the book is made up of stories primarily about Sedaris' experiences in France. There is virtually no transition between the stories about his childhood in North Carolina and these later stories about learning French and living in Paris with his boyfriend. However, the quality of the stories makes up for this abrupt leap of time and place. After reading other stories in this book and stories in Barrel Fever and hearing pieces on National Public Radio, it is clear that Sedaris is an excellent observer of culture. He is in fine form in Me Talk Pretty One Day.
In several stories he writes about the challenge of learning French. Sedaris' observations of both French culture and language are outrageously funny and touching. In the stories Me Talk Pretty One Day and Jesus Shaves he describes his French class taught by a teacher whose "temperament was not based on a series of good and bad days, but, rather good and bad moments" (Sedaris 170). In See You Again Yesterday he writes an overview of his first six trips to France with his boyfriend Hugh. Reading it makes me marvel at the unending patience Hugh must have. As the stories develop so does Sedaris' grasp of the language; by Smart Guy Sedaris is taking an IQ test in French.
In many of these stories Sedaris uses his experience in France to reflect on American culture. I Pledge Allegiance to the Bag is a dissociated view of America that most Americans fail to see. But at the same time, as in all these stories, Sedaris forces us to laugh at ourselves. In Picka Pocketoni Sedaris listens as an American couple assumes he is French (and therefore can't understand a word of English) and berates him for smelling bad and being a pick pocket. Sedaris creates a snapshot of these quintessential American tourists. I can see them with their fanny packs and cameras and Sedaris quietly hunched in the corner, waiting to write it all down.
Though some of the stories are too long, namely Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist and The Late Show, Sedaris repeatedly redeems himself. He is weird and can laugh at himself. He is sweet and sarcastic in the same breath. He is a talented story-teller. Sedaris says the things we think but tells them better than we would ever hope. Above all, he is hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I bought this book in a frantic moment. As a big reader, I was faced with an entire night of basketball on TV with nothing to read. I had to leave the room because my husband couldn't hear the game over my laughter. I moved all the way to the bedroom and shut the door. He could still hear me laughing! I have honestly NEVER laughed out loud at a book. I couldn't even re-read favorite essays out loud because I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. Mr. Sedaris is adept at showing us his family and life, with all of it's oddities and making us laugh and think at the same time. I have since read all of his other books and purchased some on audio tape, but nothing will ever make me laugh as hard as the Christians trying to explain Easter in French to the Muslim girl.
Rating:
Summary: master cynic
Review: humorous, disrespectful, politically incorrect, joyously cynical, and insightful into the psychopathologies of everyday existence. In other words, my kind of book! Highly recommended for a raucous good time.
Rating:
Summary: Poignancy & Humor Are A Delightful Mix
Review: David Sedaris delivers a delightful array of autobiographical moments in "Me Talk Pretty One Day" The author not only forces the reader to laugh out loud, but beneath the mirth are serious and thoughtful moments. The poignancy and humor are a delightful mix. The first chapter sets the stage as Sedaris describes his speech therapy in a Carolina grade school. The school is trying to correct his lisp. In reality they are concerned about his potential homosexuality. Sedaris has fun describing the scene. Beneath the surface you feel his anguish. The rest of the book is a colorful blur of stories about his family, early jobs and other facets of his life. Two highlighted phases is an early addiction to speed and a later residency in Paris. In each incident Sedaris is a clown when it comes to self-depreciation, but his smiles lightly cloaks some more serious themes. I recommend "Me Talk Pretty One Day" because of the diverse perspective it delivers. At minimum you will be entertained. At the same time David Sedaris introduces real social and cultural issues without sermonizing.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond funny
Review: I first heard David Sedaris on public radio and found his essays to be extremely funny and insightful. This book continues that tradition very well. Sedaris is an autobiographer, a social satirist and a wit. In some ways, however, he reminds me of the Jerry character on Seinfeld: He is funny on his own, but is funniest when he is the straight man for the genuinely eccentric people in his life. His family--from his beautiful sister who makes herself ugly to his foul-mouthed redneck brother to his sly, understated mother and his father, a screamingly funny IBM engineer with the strangest eating habits -- are the real stars here. Even his partner, who gets relatively little play in this book, is great fun. Each essay has something to recommend it. While I thought the essays from France were more insightful and less humorous than the essays about his growing up, they all worked. And several were so funny I was unable to read them to my wife because I was laughing too hard to get the words out. Read this book for the humor and you will happily reflect later on some keen social commentary. (Note to earlier reviewer: Sedaris is much funnier than Bryson, and for much longer stretches.)
Rating: 
Summary: Humor?
Review: Maybe, being a 60 plus, I simply do not understand Sedaris' humor, but this book is the biggest disappointment I have read in a long time. Moderately entertaining, perhaps, but funny, no! If you want laugh-out-loud funny, read any of the Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich; or Edward Abbey's "Monkey Wrench Gang" or anything by Dana Stabenow, funniest being "Breakup"; or anything by Carl Hiassen or Dave Barry. Mark Twain is funny and smart. Sedaris is pathetic.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the kind of 'funny' I was expecting
Review: According to almost all of the other reviews, here and elsewhere, this entire book is screaming/rolling on the floor/laughing out loud funny. I did NOT find this to be so, and it's not like I'm one of those people who never laughs out loud; I laugh all the time. So, expecting to be disturbing friends and strangers by laughing in public places for no apparent reason, I was a little bit disappointed when ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY turned out to be much more subtle and profound than uproariously funny. I'm still not over that disappointment, but I found myself through the book in two short afternoon sittings, thoroughly enjoying the ride and a little [angry] when it ended so abruptly. Sedaris writes about anything and everything with consistent humor -- something few writers can really pull off -- that had me more or less constantly smiling. (And then occasionally a real laugh -- the kind that ends with gasping and tears in your eyes -- would escape me, most memorably during the three page "Big Boy.") He's a little bit cynical and a little bit insecure and at the same time totally unapologetic, and the mix works very well. Disappointments aside, I'd buy another of his books any day. (Side note to those who are looking for constant, crazy laughter of the kind descibed above: read anything -- ANYTHING -- by Bill Bryson.)
Rating:
Summary: A laugh-out-loud, can't-put-it-down book!!!
Review: This book is a terrifically funny collection of stories. David Sedaris is an amazing writer. I can't wait for another book.
Rating:
Summary: Talking Pretty Is Difficult
Review: In this book, the reader can empathize with the difficulties children and adults have, while learning to speak correctly. Mr. Sedaris starts with "s" difficulties, and after conquering that, continues on with his life to encounter drug problems and the French language. The humor Mr. Sedaris displays while painting vivid pictures of his father, who has unique shopping and eating habits, and his boyfriend, who grew up in Africa, are very entertaining. I especially like the descriptions of Africa that he tells, making them sound as if they were his own memories, rather than his boyfriend's. Overall, I found the book to be very good, but enjoyed some parts more than others.
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