I had heard a lot of talk about this book called “Naked.”

I had also heard a lot about the author, David Sedaris. All of this talk had been extremely good, so why not review it?

Well, let’s just say I wasn’t as impressed as I’d hoped to be.

Who knows, maybe I fell into the age-old dilemma of “hear good things, build it up in your head and then hate it.” Hey, it happened to me with “Titanic,” why not with “Naked?”

The one great thing about this little tale of self-discovery is the sarcastic undertone in the writing.

Sedaris is clearly poking fun at the myriad of often pointless celebrity biographies written of late. Frankly, I have to have some respect for a man like that.

The author begins with young David describing his tortured childhood and his mother drinking on a regular basis with his elementary school teachers.

The sole purpose of these meetings is to make fun of the boy’s nervous tics and paranoid schizophrenic behavior.

At the end of the first chapter, I knew I was in trouble. As awful as Sedaris’ scenario sounds, the unfair treatment follows him nearly everywhere he goes, yet he manages to laugh at himself and somehow get readers to laugh along.

Sedaris seems to know he’s pathetic, he just doesn’t happen to care.

Toward the end of the book, in an effort to stop someone from stealing, he says to the thief, “That’s Uta’s. Maybe you should talk with her before opening it because, well, it’s hers, and you know how she is about her things.”

Then, as an afterthought, Sedaris says, “This was about as forceful as I get. Were America’s safety in my hands, we would all be wearing burlap sacks, polishing the boots of any invader capable of pronouncing the word boo.”

Sedaris is as eccentric as he is honest with himself and everyone he meets, whether it be the co-worker with the, um, male organ collection (don’t ask), or his various hitchhiking encounters.

The people in Sedaris’ life are all either crazy or just plain strange, which keeps things from getting boring.

The only problem is that they come in no particular order, and their story lines tend to collide with one another. This causes added confusion for the reader.

I was often left to wonder how, in just a paragraph, the author could conceivably go from bunking with a crippled girl in college to picking apples all day long for a bitter, pissed-off farmer.

Often I would manage to get interested in a story line, beginning to wonder, “Hmm … where’s this headed?” only to be left hanging at the end of the chapter.

Once in awhile, Sedaris managed to make me laugh at a witty observation or sarcastic comment, but as a whole, this biography just wasn’t my style.

2 1/2 stars out of five

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Kelsey Foutch is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Waterloo.