Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm...well, this one reader just didn't get it.
Review: Ok. The string of raves from Amazon customers and the press alike convinced me to get, um, Naked. And I swear unto you, I am a funny guy. I like to laugh. I like humor. Really. Just plain didn't find this book funny, or even readable for that matter. Well, just found it kinda tedious, overwrought, whatever, anything but funny. So I don't get it, and it must be my own defect. What's so funny about this yawner? The same things people describe here as evoking of various rolling and emitting, well, I read the same thing and found it all boring. Controversy makes the world go round...decide for yourself I guess...
Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious and eye-opening...Set a trap!
Review: Being new to David Sedaris I had no idea of his sexual orientation. But I LAUGHED. In fact, I am seldom aware of the orientation of any authors... be they old favorites or new discoveries. It is simply not an issue. All I know is I laughed... uncontrollably. That said, it was with a certain amount of delight that I came to realize Sedaris is gay. Not because this is the crux of his book but, quite the opposite, because it isn't. I was thrown into fits of laughter long before I had any idea that his perspective was, unavoidably, different from mine. Or so I thought. What is so refreshing about his book is the commonality found between people of different lifestyles... without being beaten about the head with it. Whether they be white or black, gay or straight, in possession of all faculties or handicapped, the characters in this book all share one common trait...they are flawed. And through these common flaws come the bust-out-loud, uncontrollable spasms that, hours later, inspire the same response as when they are first read. Sedaris' style is both critical and self-depricating. We are forced to laugh at him as we laugh at ourselves. We are able to see our own lives through his microscopic self-examination. And we laugh at the faults he finds within us all. This book is hilarious and warrants rereading, if only for its poignant insights and jewels of prose. It also functions well as a trap. Lend it to a friend who has difficulty "understanding" gays and, before they know what hit them, they will realize they are communing with the very person that, pages before, had been a complete mystery to them
Rating:
Summary: Rip roaring, loving and hilarious
Review: I really needed to read a great, bitter, funny, honest, super book like this. This is my new favorite author
Rating:
Summary: It made me laugh; it made me cry
Review: Naked is David Sedaris' bravest work yet. It's very funny but Mr. Sedaris is so open in his assessments of his family and, most especially, of himself that I wondered if I would have the guts to expose myself like that (no pun intended). I found his chapters about his quadripelegic friend and the death of his mother very moving and insightful. It's definitely my choice for my next book club's selection
Rating:
Summary: Celebrating the best and the worst in all of us.
Review: David Sedaris' Naked is a work of non-fiction. It's a memoir, an autobiography of sorts, consisting of short essays that chronicle the writers experiences of his contentious, wacky, yet all too familiar family, his job and "on the road" experiences. Sedaris broadcasts a bright and burning spotlight on the human condition, ready or not. Sedaris finds his most moving and painfully humorous material within his home life and his relationship with his mother. She seems to appear as Sedaris' alter-ego, foil, confidant, and the source of Sedaris' sense of humor. The moving piece "Ashes" tells unflinchingly and without a trace sugary sentimentality of her death from cancer: "I love you, I said at the end of one of our late-night phone calls. I am going to pretend I didn't hear that, she said. I heard a match strike in the background, the tinkling of ice cubes in a raised glass. And then she hung up. I had never said such a thing to my mother, and if I had to do it over again, I would probably take it back. Nobody ever spoke that way except Lisa. It was queer to say such a thing to someone unless you were trying to talk them out of money or into bed, our mother had taught that when we were no taller than pony kegs. I had known people who said such things to their parents, I love you, but it always translated to mean I'd love to get off the phone with you."
Sedaris leaves no emotional stone unturned or dark territory unexplored concerning his family's eccentricities, to say the least, but this is not an attempt to be shocking or sensationalistic for it's own sake. Sedaris is bringing the secrets of his strange, neurotic, family into the light, and in these, his personal stories, we realize that he is not so different from us, his family, not unlike our own. It's in these seemly, simply funny and entertaining pieces that we see that Sedaras, for all his satire and cutting wit, deep down is a big hearted humanitarian with serious affection for this life, and through his gift of language and personal storytelling he is celebrating the best and the worst in all of us.
Rating:
Summary: One of my all-time favorite books
Review: Clever,incisive, acerbic, poignant, touching, hilarious. All these words describe this wonderful book, yet all seem too trite. No review could properly prepare you for the sheer joy that awaits you; I did not want it to end, and immediately ran out to get BARREL FEVER. Just pick up the book and read a few pages; you will be immediately hooked. (If not, maybe this isn't your kind of humor)
Rating: 
Summary: A doppelganger of a book: half good, half bad.
Review: The first half of Naked is hilarious; so much so that you tell your friends that they must read the book when you're done. However, by the time you're done with the book, you'll want to provide the second half to your enemies. So, I rate the first half a "10" and the second half a "3", giving a combined average of "7". Don't be afraid to put this book down when the pace begins to falter. The author never regains his stride and, in the figurative sense, collapses a good 50 pages before the finish line. It teaches us the lesson we would never believe as adolescents: even naked won't sustain our interest forever
Rating:
Summary: Get out your handkerchief...
Review: On many occasions, I had to put NAKED down, gasp for air and wipe my eyes as mascara dripped onto my shirt. One of the funniest books I have ever read. I was calling friends to read snippets of prose to them over the phone; the trouble was, I couldn't stop laughing long enough to complete the sentences. Sedaris has hit, no, SMASHED the nail on the head with his assorted musings about everyday life in end-of-the-road towns with whacked-out inhabitants. Nothing is sacred. It's delicious
Rating:
Summary: Should be sold with a bib
Review: Make a list of the 10 most boring and/or serious topics you can think of. Your list might include obsessive-compulsive disorder, golf, cancer, and bus travel. Filter the same topics through the twistedly comic mind of David Sedaris and you're laughing like a cartoon character, not just a titter here and there but full throttle guffaws and Mr. Ed-like snorts. NAKED should be sold with the same kind of bib you get with a lobster dinner, so you won't stain whatever you're wearing as you slobber with laughter, chapter after chapter. Maybe you should take a cue from the title and read it naked. Whatever you do, read it.
NAKED is David Sedaris' sardonic account of his own life and times. From licking lightbulbs in Raleigh, N.C. to learning the ropes at a nudist colony somewhere in Pennsylvania, he takes us on a journey riddled with characters that make Jim Carrey look restrained. There's the Nazi-sympathizing Uta, and Curly, the lank haired manager with a penchant for kinky sex. There's Jon, the born-again jade clock maker and the whole Sedaris family whose coat of arms would probably feature a kegger and a carton of cigarettes. NAKED is part freak show, part travelogue, and part memoir with an attitude. But it's also a coming of age story, turned on its ear, but still recognizable and as universal as birth itself
Rating:
Summary: Smile while you read. Think after you put it down.
Review: This is a great book worthy of such greats such as Jack Kerouack (pardon my spelling). I couldn't put this book down. You'll be sure to laugh at many of the characters, including the author himself (if you don't at his quirky OCD habits, then something is wrong). Then, after you put the book down, you wonder if you should have been laughing at all; there's something deep in each chapter, it's the light writing that makes it a smooth read, though. A perfect combination
|
