Friday, April 14, 2006

I Am Not Myself These Days

Just so everyone knows, I tried to blog yesterday, but I couldn't add any pictures, so I gave up. Sorry.

So, on to I Am Not Myself These Days. My good friend Charlie recommended this book on his blog. In the past, Charlie has recommended to me such books as Barrel Fever, The Eight, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, all of which are in my top twenty of all time list, so I was super jazzed to read his latest recommendation. I wasn't disappointed, even though I didn't love the book as much as Charlie did. I Am Not Myself These Days is the story of Josh, a junior ad exec by day and highly successful drag queen by night, and his love affair with a male escort/crack addict. Now, I don't know much about crack, or advertising, or escorts, but I do love drag queens, so this book was a fun "insider's view" for me. I especially liked the section where Josh goes through his preparations to become Aqua. So vivid, and so funny!
I really liked IANMTD, but I think my loyalties lie with David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs. I know my grades are not supposed to be based on comparisons - everything should get a stand-alone grade - but while I was reading the book I couldn't help but make comparisons, so I'm letting myself get away with it in this case.

I Am Not Myself These Days - A-

3 comments:

Chargenda said...

Hooray! Finally! See, for me, he was a bit more biting and less repentent than Burroughs, and I liked that. But yeah, Sedaris is still the King of fags memoirs.

paultoes said...

oh, amanda. i forgot about you and your reading... it gets me all misty-eyed.

Anonymous said...

well, i'm happy being a b-list sedaris. thanks for reading the book! glad you liked it.