This was a great short collection of irreverent stories, that hit a bit close to home for Personal Life Reasons but nonetheless were enjoyable to read!
Recommended by Priti for Bookticle Club (an august organization that began as Happy Hour Hangout, then had a brief dalliance as Book Club before settling into Article Club for many a year, and then went into hibernation before being reborn during COVID–for a time as Bookticle Club, an attempt to sneak “Book Club” past everyone’s newly refreshed “I am not overcomitting myself anymore” mantras, and now in its I-won’t-call-it-final-but-promising-form of Book Rapport Club, a clever play on book report that I utterly missed), Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory reads like McSweeney’s gone literary, and I say that with no pretension whatsoever. I love reading McSweeney’s although given its prodigious output it’s always a Jafar-esque task of finding the diamond(s) in the rough.
A sidebar for my favorite McSweeney’s piece of all time (and, possibly, one of the best things ever?): I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT MY WEDDING TO CAPTAIN VON TRAPP HAS BEEN CANCELED.
But here, it’s more a personal matter as to which stories might not catch your attention, because they’re all quite snappy and great. For example, I did not enjoy one of the stories highlighted for discussion (“These Are Facts”) about midway through, and then I googled it for some advice on how to Understand the Literary Bits. As it were I enjoyed the story from that point onwards!
Quick snippets on others I enjoyed:
“A Most Blessed and Auspicious Occasion” : because if you’re not sacrificing at least 23 goats then are you even getting married?
“Lunch with the Person Who Dumped You” : this is classic and also a corollary to the story “All The Ways You Can Look When You Run Into The PWDY And All the Outfits You Own You Could Have Been Wearing”
“You Want to Know What Plays Are Like” : a particularly hilarious one for me, with its snide asides as to the nature of plays (plays are very important works of art and also I have fallen asleep in many)