Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story

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Summary: Amy Tan comments on BE SWEET
Review: "Roy Blount has turned the world of memoir writing on its ear. BE SWEET is the real thing:the brilliant disarray of midlife reflection, the quirky detours of mapping a personal cosmos. Reading it, I often found myself laughing out loud, to the consternation of people in waiting rooms, but I also was moved to breathlessness by the book's palpable emothions, sweetness and slap-on-the-knee poignant self-truths."

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Summary: Dave Barry comments on BE SWEET
Review: "Roy Blount, who is the funniest person I know, journeys deep into the dark heart of humor and brings back a wonderfully insightful, superbly crafted song of the soul that had me laughing and crying too."

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Summary: Roy Blount is one who will last.
Review: Any book by Roy Blount is vital; so is any piece of journalism, from his paen to Krispy Kreme donuts to his classic profile of Joe DiMaggio. This book is a future classic; people will be amazed it wasn't more appreciated at the time. It combines the deeply felt with the deeply funny--the hardest trick in the literary book.

Rating:
Summary: good writing...but
Review: Blount is a good writer and has an excellent sense of phrasing. Many of these essays are insightful and quiet funny but overall this memoir really needs some editing. It is too long and rambling and he continually looses sight of his own theme. The best essays aren't even about his past but his current situation as a "humorist." His travels to China and stints on talk shows are the best.

Rating:
Summary: good writing...but
Review: Blount is a good writer and has an excellent sense of phrasing. Many of these essays are insightful and quiet funny but overall this memoir really needs some editing. It is too long and rambling and he continually looses sight of his own theme. The best essays aren't even about his past but his current situation as a "humorist." His travels to China and stints on talk shows are the best.

Rating:
Summary: Ingeniously written but a little self-indulgent
Review: By the end of this book, I knew for certain that it was worth reading although I had many doubts until then. Blount made me laugh and made me marvel at his skill, but he also bored me with his self-loathing and longueurs. The chapter on the troubles of men named after their fathers (juniors) was excruciatingly dull, and forgot to make mention of Hank Williams Junior, one of the most grandiose sufferers from this syndrome. Worse, Blount junior never really explained what made his mother so maddening. Nevertheless, he tells very well how he finally came to value what she (and his father) gave to him.

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Summary: A not very funny humorist!
Review: Having roared at Roy Blount's humor on the Garrison Keillor show, I really looked forward to reading his book making fun of the mother-son relationship so aptly caught up in the title, "Be Sweet". I was terribly disappointed and found him not only lacking in humor but exhibiting a real dislike for females altogether. It was a book I easily gave away to the second hand shop.

Rating:
Summary: A not very funny humorist!
Review: Having roared at Roy Blount's humor on the Garrison Keillor show, I really looked forward to reading his book making fun of the mother-son relationship so aptly caught up in the title, "Be Sweet". I was terribly disappointed and found him not only lacking in humor but exhibiting a real dislike for females altogether. It was a book I easily gave away to the second hand shop.

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Summary: Interesting mother -son history
Review: I bought "Be Sweet" because my mother was a "Paty Class" member along with Roy's mother and she listened to Roy's daddy teach and I knew Roy's sister, Susan and i wanted to see if Roy Jr. had ever been able to be as sweet as any of our mothers wanted us all to be. At times Roy rambles down the red clay back roads of his Georgia boyhood and I wonder where we are headed...but I do not questioon my desire to followy. Grab a hold of a strong kudzoo vine and swing out over the arcane waters of the 'be sweet' mother and her "ya-ya" off spring.

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Summary: therapeutic for all children of southern mothers
Review: I bought "Be Sweet" because my mother was a "Paty Class" member along with Roy's mother and she listened to Roy's daddy teach and I knew Roy's sister, Susan and i wanted to see if Roy Jr. had ever been able to be as sweet as any of our mothers wanted us all to be. At times Roy rambles down the red clay back roads of his Georgia boyhood and I wonder where we are headed...but I do not questioon my desire to followy. Grab a hold of a strong kudzoo vine and swing out over the arcane waters of the 'be sweet' mother and her "ya-ya" off spring.