Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris is the fourth book he has written. All of his books are collections of short stories about his life and his family. This particular book focuses more on his childhood than his previous books, but it also has a lot about his life with his boyfriend Hugh. This is a very funny book and really shows what kind of situations he gets into. Most of them are funny and weird, but some are depressing and sad. The author is a homosexual but doesn't mention it very often. It is insinuated in a lot of the things he does because he happens to be homosexual but he doesn't flat out say it. Everyone who reads this book seems to at least like it, but most love it.

This novel is a collection of essays about the author’s life and family. In this particular book it goes from his childhood to his life in France with his lover Hugh and the jobs/experiences he has in between. His whole family is a bunch of peculiar people who all have their own quirks. A good example of one of his hilarious family members would be his brother Paul who you meet in the story "You Can't Kill the Rooster". He is the youngest of the family and his parents call him a "free spirit". He does what he wants, when he wants. He curses constantly and does whatever he wants in the house even smokes pot. He seems to have an abusive relationship with his father but it turns out that in the end he's always there for him even when he's in trouble.

The book shows his experiences and hardships in a humorous and lively manner. There are very few stories that are even remotely boring. His humor isn’t really vulgar and this helps the book out greatly.

"It turns out I’m really stupid, practically an idiot. There are cats that weigh more than my IQ score. Were my number translated into dollars, it would buy you about three buckets of fried chicken. The fact that this surprises me only bespeaks the depths of my ignorance. The test reflects my ability to reason logically. Either you reason things out or you don’t. Those who do, have high IQs. Those who don’t reach for the mayonnaise when they can’t find the insect repellent." (246)

This is a good example of Sedaris’s humor. Before this was said he had taken an IQ test and it was mentioned that when he was a child he would use mayonnaise as an insect repellent. His humor isn’t hard to understand and that was one of the harder sections of the book read grammar wise. His father is one of the livelier characters in the book. He has a peculiar habit of saving food till it goes rotten. “Back at the Apartment, He unpacked. I thought the cat had defecated on my bed until I realized that the object on my pillow was not a turd but a shriveled black banana he had brought all the way to Paris from its hiding place beneath the sink.” (271) His father does many things like this through out the book and somehow has nothing in common with any of his children. “To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests.” (33)

His style of writing is very easy going and this made the book an easy and fun read. The stories weren’t so long that it made the book boring. All the stories were just long enough that you got everything you needed and nothing extra.

This is a book for anyone in the high school level or above. This is mainly because of some curses and other inappropriate material. If you have an open mind and don’t mind the very little amount of homosexuality that is mentioned in the book you should pick it up because it is a great novel and is very, very funny. From North Carolina to France Sedaris vividly describes his hilarious family and situations.