straight shooter
Customer Rating: 




I had such a good time reading this book. Not something you would expect about a book from a cancer survivor. Perhaps it's because I share Meredith's atypical journey through life that involves multiple careers and dark sense of humor that I found it such a refreshing read, regardless of the subject matter.
If you can't handle the fact that cancer is painful, the way it's treated in Western medicine is laughable (if not scary), or if you expect to have some golden halo rain down upon you giving you a new perspective on life so you can walk away from it thinking that, oh, a black woman with a sense of humor who has cancer can't possibly be feeling any kind of pain, then go find another book. It is a humor that is funny, I think, if you find David Sedaris holding up a cadaver when the car full of French people accidentally show up in his driveway, funny.
Don't get this book if you're looking for some magical panacea that will make you forget that people who go through traditional chemo don't have all the pain and unnaturalness that is Western medicine shoved into their bodies. But if you understand that life and death can be painful and beautifully hilarious whether dodging dog poop in Paris, "Christian" school groups in college, or navigating cancer, well then, read on...Also, if you're some literary snob who has spent more years at university than talking to regular people on the street (i.e. having a normal, healthy social life), then go re-read one of the classics and don't try to superimpose critical theory or comparative analysis onto a memoir that is clearly not meant to speak to you.