Rating: 
Summary: Looking for humor, finding little
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: simply the best..........
Review: it's the funniest book I've ever read-- LOVE THIS author
Rating:
Summary: Warning: You can't just read one of his books!
Review: All of David Sedaris' work is great! If you get the chance, listen to the pieces he has read on This American Life for NPR. They are sooo funny! The thing about his writing is that the stories are so off-the-wall and told with such honesty and cleverness that you can't help but identify/sympathize with him. He's like a post-modern Dave Barry, maybe...
Rating:
Summary: You'll be on the floor!
Review: David Sedaris (along with his sister, Amy) is one of the funniest writers out there and NAKED is one of his best. It's a true classic that will get in the most stone-faced reader to head to the hospital for a busted gut. Also check out ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY and, if you get a chance, to see David's play THE SANTALAND DIARIES (a hysterical one-man play about working as an elf at the mall's Santa stand).
Rating:
Summary: I loved it and would read it over and over
Review: Very quickly, this book has become one of my favorites. All at once poignant, touching and screamingly funny, David Sedaris has done a wonderful job of creating a memoir that's worth reading. Sedaris is perhaps one of the greatest American humorists living today, and his stories here are not only funny, but also touching and endearing, as well. Sedaris has won a special place in the upper echelon of my favorite writers.
Rating:
Summary: Very amusing
Review: Although not everyone's cup of tea, I thought Naked was excruciatingly funny. I like this book so much that I can read it over and over again. Every story is well crafted and original, which makes some readers nervous. This book isn't your mother's book of memoirs, it's not your father's brand of humor, but that's the beauty of it--it's fresh. Instead of sobbing his way through every traumatic experience of life like many writers do, David Sedaris puts an acid spin on it and makes it funny, from his painful-to-read struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder that he eventually cures with a cigarette addiction, to his inability to find work after college--a situation that he attempts to solve by "finding things" instead of working for a living and sleeping his time away until the soaps come on in the afternoon. All in all, Sedaris made me realize that the hard parts of life aren't really that bad, and someone always has it worse off than I do (like the young Sedaris who is so distraught by the growing number of children in his family that he tries desperately to get kidnapped by waiting out in front of the grocery store while his mother is inside shopping). It's the fact that these stories are based on his real life that make you want to cry while you're laughing.
Rating: 
Summary: A mediocre biography
Review: Even though I managed to finish reading the book, it was not nearly as funny as many reviewers and critics had described. I did not enjoy a few chapters describing trailer park lifestyle as well as the end of the book with too many details of the nudists' weekend attractions. Overall, if you are looking for something very funny and entertaining, I would not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Obnoxious, Overbearing and Pretty Darn Entertaining
Review: the book has no real conception of time, but the way it is structured, you learn not to care after a few chapters. every several pages you have a new story about this person's life, his homosexuality, his mom, his weird ideas of how to cure absolute bordem. most of the time he is a funny SOB and other times he's annoying. like most white writers, he tries to hip it up a bit with his wanton use of the n-word and silly ideas of shock value. the stuff that proves folks like quentin tarrantino to be one-trick ponies and hacks. it has a very strange start and a most interesting ending. the middle zips right by and with all the faults i've mentioned, i'm glad i read it. it makes the commute fly right by.
Rating:
Summary: How sad and humorless!
Review: I can't believe the ratings that other readers have given this book. What a waste of money and time. Sedaris has no sense of humor, he is just pure obnoxious! Please don't waste your money....Come and pick up my book for free, I mean it!
Rating: 
Summary: I love this man!
Review: David Sedaris has got to be one of the funniest writers on the scene. I have tapped my head for awhile as to why that is and it came to me: he focus on relatable subjects that are not funny and makes light of them. He allows us as readers, to see his vulnerablity and make fun of it with him. Good stuff, if you like the book I recommend the audio tape, he reads it himself so his humor and sarcasm are very sharp.
|
