Book Review: Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

By David Sedaris

My first exposure to David Sedaris' hilarious autobiographical essays was my first semester of college. While taking English Composition 1, one of our first assignments was to read 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'. After reading it, I expressed to my professor how much I absolutely loved it and thanked her for choosing it for the class. She told me that there's an entire book to accompany it, also titled Me Talk Pretty One Day. After I came home from school that day, the first thing I did was go on Amazon to purchase it. I devoured the book in one night, which is something so rare for me as I'm a very slow and distracted reader.

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls is now probably my second favorite David Sedaris collection. Me Talk Pretty One Day will likely always be first. I listened to this as an audiobook while cleaning the house and went through it within about three days of cleaning. I often found myself laughing out loud, my daughter who is 14 months old, thinking something funny must be happening while I fold laundry would also laugh gregariously beside me. Which in turn, made things even funnier as I was using earphones and even so she hardly speaks English. 

I found most of the essays to be very funny, the only downfall was towards the end. Similar to Holidays on Ice, the fictional short stories ruined it for me. I have never been a fan of Sedaris' fictional writing. His stories are so strange and demented. The kind of demented that makes your stomach turn in a way. A bit too sick and twisted for me and not funny at all. For that reason, what was going to be a 4 out of 5 star book, turned into a 3 out of 5 star book. However, because the non-fiction essays about Sedaris' life were so enjoyable I'm going to give it a pity star bringing it back up to 4 out of 5 stars.