I picked this up at a thrift store. I love memoirs, and this one sounds a little like Laurie Notaro's memoirs, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I started reading it and have already fallen in love with the way Gilman uses words. Here is an example of one of my favorite descriptions so far. In this, she's describing a New York inner-city playground:
Behind our building was a long walled-in area euphemistically called "the backyard". Devoid of any plant life, it was a wet dream for cosmetic dentists ad personal injury lawyers. Virtually every surface was concrete, except for the jungle gym, which was made from cast iron and about as safe and appealing to play on as a giant perfortaed skillet.

I loved this book! Gilman has such a great writing style that she inspired me to sit down and try to write something about my own childhood years. Mine fell flat.

Her childhood years weren't even the best part. I greatly enjoyed reading about her adult years, her family life, and her parents. Like Gilman, I was 22 years old and out of the house when my parents suddenly got divorced. It's a strange feeling and she captured a lot of it.

The Capitol Hill years and her wedding preparation were also good.

I am definitely going to search for "Kiss My Tiara" now. And I'll save this one for a Bio/Memoir bookbox coming to my house soon.

RELEASE NOTES:

I hope someone else enjoys this book as much as I did!

Took out of Jumieges' Bookbox! :-)

I took out:
Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by: Susan Jane Gilman
Unforgettable Fire by: Eamon Dunphy
Divinely Decadent: Liza Minnelli by: Sarah Gallick, Nicholas Maier

I put in:
Still Me by: Christopher Reed
Simply Barbara Bush by: Donnie Radcliffe
Britney: Not That Innocent by: Larry Getlan, Nicholas Maier
Lucky: A Memoir by: Alice Sebold
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I've Learned by: Alan Alda

This was such a fun book! It reminds me of Laurie Notaro and Jen Lancaster. It was laugh out loud funny in parts. My family kept asking me - What are you laughing about?? Smart-aleck women write hilarious books.

My favorite part was talking about her wedding. It was so true! I actually wanted to elope to avoid the hassle, but my husband wanted to get married in a church. I told him it was okay, but I didn't want a big crazy wedding. We got the wedding we wanted, I had already told my friends and family that we would elope if things got too crazy and we'd skip the wedding altogether. I like to think of it as wedding blackmail. (ha ha)

I also enjoyed the part when they moved to Switzerland and they tried to learn French from watching the Jerry Springer show in French with english subtitles. Too funny!

Saving for a bookbox.

This book is travelling in the Biography/Auto-Biography/Humor Bookbox.

pulled out of JennyC1230's bio bookbox

Gilman has a way with words as she pens her memoir with a smart-aleck tongue. I used to teach preschool and got a real kick reading Gilman's description of showing up to kindergarten in a tutu and tights that would take forever and a day to get out of to use the bathroom. All the attention she was receiving encouraged the other girls yo show up in tutus as well. She painted the classroom dynamic with such brilliance that I couldn't help but to laugh out loud.

Kindergarten wasn't the only humorous period in Gilman's life. She takes us all the way through her adulthood in laugh out loud moments. This was a fun read all the way around.

Adding to the virtual Bio/AutoBio/Humor Bookbox

Caught for my: Virtual Biography/Auto-Biography/Humor Bookbox.

Love Laurie Notaro and Jen Lancaster and this one sounds a lot like them. Looking forward to reading this one. Thanks for sharing!

I enjoyed this memoir. Susan Gilman is very similar to other snarky female writers like Notaro and Lancaster. This book, a series of essays examining various events, is divided into three parts - young / elementary school age; teenage; and young adult. I think the first section was the most humorous. The teen years are angsty enough and reading about them is mostly painful, even when it’s marginally better. (Hey, she met Mick at a party and got to talk to him? - how many teenagers can claim that?).

Quotes to remember:

More than anything else, your relationship with God is your own business...Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise.

Messiahs, saviors, they were beyond me, but Mary I could understand. Maybe that is what her story was meant to be about - that in the darkness of winter, in the face of poverty and prejudice - I should fear not - I would be taken in - I would be chosen yet - fear not! There were children to be born - and stars to appear - and kings to arrive - Fear not! God had not overlooked anyone! God had not overlooked me, as unattractive and unlikable and pathetic as I was.

...any moron can do this job...The only skills you might ever need are crowd control and anger management.

At some point, I suppose, all of us in our lives confront some unavoidable, outsized horror...inevitably a moment comes for all of us when we realize that we cannot beat the devil on this one: we have been targeted for injustice or tragedy. And nothing in school, nothing in daily life really prepares us for this. Maybe nothing can, except art, perhaps. Or faith.

Let me get this straight. You're a non-practicing Jew and a 'recovering' Catholic and you'd like me to perform an interfaith wedding ceremony with a lesbian Wiccan priestess? Well, Jewish law does not list 'sheer curiosity' as a reason to do so, but it's as good as any I can come up with. [snort]

Reserving for the nonfiction VBB

Sending as a selection from the Nonfiction VBB

Thank you for sending this. Sorry for being late to acknowledge it. I've just lost track of everything bookcrossing over these last 6 weeks.