Clearly, there is something wrong with my brain. So many people rave about this book and despite having my birthday as the title - it's not something I can get excited about.
The first story is weirdly disjointed -- venturing inside the brain of a teenage girl who seems to have ADHD, and a teenage boy who has strict disciplinarian parents. The girl is abducted from her home and the boy goes to her rescue, bashing in the head of the abductor. It's mostly told through internal dialogue of the characters and not an enjoyable read.
Another story about a mother who visits a "white trash" home to look at a puppy with her kids - and discovers a child being kept on a leash in the muddy backyard, decides to "not contribute" to what's going on there (which contributes to the death of the puppy).
A long story about human experimentation on prisoners -- who are injected with trademarked name products to heighten their perception of attractiveness of the other person, their ability to communicate and their awareness ... or the opposite direction results in a group of two women and 3 men having a ridiculous amount of sex, and a suicide. It was creepy and sad to say the least.
I tried to read through the remaining stories but didn't find them to be very interesting. They were drawn out in a way that was just not natural flow of communication. The epilogue is an interview between David Sedaris and the author -- cooing over each other and the alleged skewering of class in the US (apparently through repeatedly referring to "white trash").
Your mileage may vary - this presents a distorted reality, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
REVIEW: Tenth of December by George Saunders
RATING: 2-stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.
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