Summary:
A collection of short personal stories and musings covering a variety of topics. Many have a historical slant to them. She talks about her secret love affair with the Godfather, her trip with her twin sister that followed the Cherokee Indians' Trail of Tears, curiosities over mixed tapes, a trip through Hoboken to search for Sinatra sentimentality, and more.
Thoughts:
The previous book I read by Ms. Vowell, was held together by a couple of strings that were woven throughout the book, namely the presidential assassination angle, and also that she only wrote about the three that had Lincoln's son inadvertently involved. This book feels much more disjointed. Very few stories have anything to do with each other, and even the book itself is split into several different sections. These are literally just a few stories and essays that Vowell seems to have written in the past that she and the publisher strung together to fill a two-hundred page book. Sure, some of it is interesting, including her talk of the Trail of Tears, and the writing itself isn't bad. It just doesn't feel like the book gels at all. Whatsoever. It's a thorough disappointment compared to her other book. To be fair, though, this particular book was released five years prior to the other, and maybe her skill at bringing topics together had improved greatly over that time. Unfortunately, that skill was not in evidence here. I'm honestly disappointed. What's worse, it took me so long to trudge through this book, the forgettable beginning was completely lost on me by the end, and I had to go back and remind myself what the early topics in the book were.
Book 49 of 50
Pages: 219
Genre: Non-fiction, some history
Grade: C-
Would I Recommend?: Eh. Assassination Vacation was far more interesting.
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