Me Talk Pretty One Day

I read David Sedaris's book of short stories, "Me Talk Pretty One Day," over the weekend. It was definitely a light-hearted, easy read. I preferred the 2nd 1/2 of the book since it was set in Paris!

One of my favorite stories was the first story in the book where David has to start going to Speech Therapy. It brought back memories of a similar experience during my childhood. I had to see a Speech Therapist when I was in 4th grade. I vividly remember the day that I got the letter in class - it was addressed to my parents, but being the curious child I was, I over course opened it... I remember crying in class about the fact that I was being referred to speech therapist. I thought there was something 'wrong' with me. My mom & dad assured me that it would be a painless experience and could only help me. Well, my speech therapist was nicer than the one in David's story, but still made those days that I had to go to speech pretty painful. Since I had lost my 2 front teeth at the same time, I had troubles w/ words like "whistle". So I'd go and work w/ this speech therapist on these words for a 1/2 hour. And as if being pulled out of class for 30 minutes each week wasn't enough embarassment (everyone knew where you were going), at the end of the lesson, the speech therapist would put a sticker on your shirt that said, 'ask me to say ____' with the blank filled in with whatever word you had mastered that day. Which I immediately took off as soon as I left the therapist's room. I love stickers as much as the next kid, but there was no way I was going to advertise my 'disability' to any of my classmates. That was the only year I had to go to the speech therapist, though. Definitely one of my LEAST favorite memories from my childhood...

Anyways, back to the book. There was quite a bit of buzz surrounding this book when I worked at B&N back in 2004, but I never got around to reading it until now. In my opinion, it was little over-hyped. There were definitely some funny stories that made me smile, but overall, I'd give it an average rating of a 3 out of 5. Entertaining & a fast/easy read, but nothing remarkable.