Book Review: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

Hey Readers!

I know it's been a minute since I posted a review on here.  This summer has been a combination of joyous events, not so joyous events, and a lot of trying to piece things all together again.  So my attention span for reading has been pretty much shot.  I would start a book, put it down, and not go back to it.

Until last night.

I don't know if it's the realization that school starts again in a week and my free time is about to be gone or what, but last night I decided to go on a digital library binge.  (Did you know you can borrow E-Books from your local library?  It's pretty awesome, and I suggest you check it out.)  In the midst of said binge, I virtually borrowed my first David Sedaris book: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.

Why have I never read David Sedaris before?!  I've heard of him, like on NPR and whatnot.  But I never picked up one of his books before.  Which is surprising, because his website has a short eared owl on the homepage.  (I love owls.  This makes me love Sedaris even more.)

I read Squirrel Seeks Chipmonk in one sitting.  Basically, the book is a collection of short stories that use animals to deal with human problems.  It's classified as satire (which means essentially it's a snarky look at life) and it was wonderful.  While all of the stories were very well done, a few stuck with me more than the others.  One was "The Crow and the Sheep", which is about a crow who is struggling to feed her family and has a discussion with a mother ewe about it.  I'm not going to ruin any endings here (what's the fun in that?), but know that it turns dark like many of the stories in here.

Overall, I really enjoyed Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.  I think David Sedaris hits on a lot of different issues in our culture in a very well done way.  It was a fairly light read, too, which  I needed.  The fact that it's made up of several stories makes it easy to get through when your attention span is shot.  The only thing I would say was a little off putting is that most of the stories take dark turns at the end.  But considering the state of our society and culture at the moment,  I'm really not surprised.

I highly recommend Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk and I think anyone of the 18 + audience would enjoy it.  I know I did.

~Meaghan