I love this book. I no longer feel like a failure in entertaining my friends and acquaintances. I also acknowledge the universal truth that alcohol is a wonderful tool to feel better about yourself and make others feel better about themselves.
Amy Sedaris clearly likes to party. And is creative. And has more friends (or is it acquaintances?) who will come to her parties. I cracked up at some the themes she comes up with and wondered, "If I use the tips in this book, will I become more popular? Or will it reveal the sad truth...that we are all just a quirky mess trying desperately to feel liked?"
If you like her brother's writing style; get ready for some gut-bustin' good times!

Amy reads her book in character, well a few characters. Pretty funny characters, but I like her brother, David Sedaris more than Amy. Still, there were three laugh out loud moments:
She tells readers/listeners what to tell people who want to bring something to your party, when it is some recipe they have been wanting to try: Your party is not the place for your friends' culinary experiments. Save that for the bedroom.
Amy also includes dating adivice:
Don't tell a first date everything about yourself. Save it for your gynecologist.
This tidbit was very funny to me. I don't think it need be restricted to lumberjacks, rather a hungry man would do: Treat a lunching lumberjack like fireworks, light the fuse and stand back.

If the jokes don't seem that funny as you read them, chalk it up to how it hit me while I listened to Sedaris' delivery. She did a great job.

An interesting part of this audiobook is: Most times audiobooks have music at the beginning and at the end of the book. Amy has peppered sound effects and music all through her book. There are audio cues for things like sidebars and what is called a stain box, which are tips about cleaning up things and getting stains out. It was well produced and entertaining.

This cracked me up. Hilarious pictures, and the crafts and recipes are all retro trash - in a good and reminiscent way! A combination of actual advice and comedic "advice."
The recipes all seem real (I thought they were going to be more joke-y, like an "Elephant Stew" type of thing) - although they ARE the type of recipes hastily scrawled on four lines of an index card that you find glued by unidentifiable food-stuffs to the bottom of a drawer in your gramma's house.

Also, this book helped me to make a new friend - the library clerk in my current city. He has only ever made weird grunting sounds and avoids eye contact when checking my material out, but when I handed him this book, he looked me straight in the eye and said, "I LOVE Amy Sedaris. I love her." If I ever host a party based on the hospitality quidelines of this book, I will totally invite him.

I like you too, Amy Sedaris!!! I read this book in about three days because I could not keep my grubby little paws off of it. The humor's a kind of toned down version of Strangers With Candy's: dry, strange, and delightfully lewd. I love it. The book has a lot of great tips and recipes as well presented in a fun, readable way. Any book that can teach me to make spanokopita AND a "fucket bucket" deserves lots of stars.

Also, if she's ever doing a book reading/signing/talking/whatever near you, make sure to get there crazy early. I drove one and a half hours to see her, only to find out the place had been packed past capacity for a few hours.