Baker's Dozen Challenge Book 8

For dust I read an essay collection by Celia Rivenbark that’s been collecting dust on my shelf for too long. One of the perils of buying books faster than you can read them is that some of the subject matter feels a little dated. 

I get the references to Bernie Madoff, Jon Gosselin’s asshole phase, Fabolous, and the underwear bomber but they definitely aren’t the most recent crazy bits of our culture. All of them are funny but they felt especially southern.

I know she bills herself as a southern writer but she felt more southern in this book than in Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like A Skank. She wrote about her elementary school age daughter a bit more and that was always some of her best stuff. 

With a combination of age and internet, I think her daughter finds her role as subject matter less amusing. The collation ended with an essay about her middle school aged daughter and the craziness of being 13. I wish she’d done a little more on that.

I’m adjusting to her style that is less centered on her family and more centered on pop culture. My favorite essays were the ones about dogs on Twitter, Christmas gifts, politics, TLC, and Chinese bachelors. If you like her other stuff, this is definitely worth a read.

1) Another World – Wild Cards edited by George R. R. Martin (Wild Cards #1)

2) Learned Something –

3) Movie-Book – The Fault in Out Stars by John Green

4) Graphic Novel – Fanboys vs. Zombies Vol 1 by Sam Humphries

5) Dust – You Don’t Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark

6) Nonfiction –

7) Reread – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (as read by Wil Wheaton)

8) Shorts – 20something Essays by 20something Writers edited by Matt Kellogg and Jillian Quint

9) Fiction – The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison

10) Shiny – Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay

11) Retelling –

12) Wild Card –

13) The End –

Music: Fool's Gold by Fitz & the Tantrums