This book, like one of its myriad cocktails, is dry, dirty and surprisingly refreshing.
Debut comedic memoir based on the 20-something author's popular blog.
In 2010, Nugent graduated from college with a degree in creative writing, "diploma in one hand, margarita in the other." Despite an exhaustive job search, she found herself unemployed and broke. Facing impending student-loan payments, she opted to move back to her parents' home. Nugent writes with a sardonic sense of humor, rife with self-deprecation, about the trials, financial and otherwise, of being an educated, jobless, single woman in her early 20s. Almost all of her stories involve alcohol, and early on, Nugent even encourages readers to drink while reading her book. In a list of tips on how to save money, she suggests foregoing coffee in favor of using "good old-fashioned fear of the unknown to keep yourself awake." After a few months, she successfully launched herself out of the nest and into a walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, where she eventually returned to working in retail. Her forays into "adulthood" included hosting a party featuring a game of strip poker and a few tame, vaguely described experiments with online dating. With limited outlets to publish her writing as a freelancer, she started her personal blog, The Frenemy, as a platform to vent her frustrations and humorous autobiographical experiences. Her memoir reads like a blog: a series of loosely structured essays and rants that work on their own as conversational pieces but collectively lack overall cohesion. Nugent's voice comes across as loyal and tough, and her sense of humor and authenticity will appeal to readers going through related chapters in their own post-college lives.
This book, like one of its myriad cocktails, is dry, dirty and surprisingly refreshing.Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-452-29818-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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