I love Danny Ortberg’s writing from The Toast, Dear Prudence, Texts from Jane Eyre, etc., so I picked this up as soon as I saw the name, and had no expectations going in. It’s like, half transition memoir, half humor writing, with the memoir parts broken up into chapters separated by off-topic “interludes.” The problem is that most of the interludes just aren’t funny, and seem more like “interruptions” any time the transition arc starts to build momentum.

Maybe I am just not getting all of the references for them to BE funny. For example, I got the distinct impression that I was missing something in the interlude about the Green Knight, and I know Ortberg is a Medievalist, so I guess it’s academic humor that went over my head. I’m no Medievalist myself, but I am fairly familiar with the Western canon, so it comes off as writing for a pretty narrow audience. Texts from Jane Eyre was funny enough that I enjoyed it even when it was referencing something I hadn’t read, but here I really felt excluded from the joke.

I did like the interlude about Golden Girls, though.