Breakfast with Tiffany: An Uncle's Memoir by edwin john wintle

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

It sounds like a sitcom: "troublemaking teenage girl from the sticks moves in with gay uncle in the city." It's a true story and both uncle and niece learn about each other and themselves -- without the story ever degenerating into cliches or sappiness. An honest, amusing, and sometimes poignant memoir. Recommended by Ruth, who has always read something worthwhile for her bookclub!

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porango

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Nice book about a gay uncle taking on the responsibility of caring for his "growing-too-quickly" niece. Cute stories and lots of realistic moments. But read the credits and discover the nieces actual name is Brittany, not Tiffany.

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Gabe_Aguilar519

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Not a great read.

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Doogle

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Maybe he's not a great writer; but he surely is a great uncle. He's a 40 year old gay man (a self-confessed "drama queen") who takes in his 13 year old neice. She is having some issues with her mother, her sister, school, discipline, drugs, unsavory friends, etc. He is trying to steer her in the right direction and decides to bring her to New York City where she will live with him and go to school. I can't resist a good book about New York City.

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imffr

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Throughout this book I rooted for Tiffany and her uncle to make things work, to save Tiffany from falling in with juvenile delinquents, to give her hope for her future, and at the same time I was a little disappointed in the memoirist. He's more self-centered than I could sympathize with, even after learning what he'd been through in his own life from adolescence onwards. At times he was just as much a teenager as his niece, and that was his downfall in his conflicts with her. I suspect he at least had some internal acknowledgment of his failure to be the mature adult in their relationship, but sometimes I wanted him to admit it to his readers, too. Still, this book inclues a refreshingly honest take on American urban teenage life, as well as dysfunctional family issues like alcoholism, domestic violence, and general irresponsibility and selfishness.

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daphredux

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I accidentally bought this book when I meant to buy "Breakfast at Sally's." I mistook it because they're both memoirs and both have the word "breakfast" in the title. It was a good mistake to make...I loved this book. Not because it was so incredibly well written, because it wasn't. But the story was beautiful and completely poignant for me.

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