A memorable witty book written from the prospective of a troubled teen's gay uncle not a usual protagonist or set up which leads to a different and enjoyable book :)

What happens when a forty-something gay man living in New York takes in his troubled fourteen-year-old niece for a year (or four)? We find out in Breakfast With Tiffany. Edwin enjoys his New York lifestyle as a single gay man working a stressful job as a film agent. But the relationship between his sister and niece is deteriorating fast and Tiffany is getting into more trouble than her mother can handle. Edwin steps in and offers to move Tiffany to NY to live with him and try to get her back on the right track. He had no idea what he was in for. The uncle and niece had previously had a good open relationship, with her living with him for a few summers, but this Tiffany is angry and feels victimized and Edwin is about to b introduced to a world that he knows little about: parenting. From finding a school to dealing with her bad crowd; talking about sex and trying to make Tiffany realize her potential; Edwin recounts the experience in detail.

I really enjoyed this. It's beautiful to see how the relationship between Tiffany and her uncle evolves over the course of a year. They make gains and setbacks and gains and setbacks. Edwin shares a lot about his own life as well, which is interesting, relevant, and not distracting. A good read.

This memoir of a gay socialite who takes his niece Tiffany under his wing is a delightful story. I would recommend it to anyone who is wanting to read a true to life, heartwarming story.

Really good, but left me wondering how everything turned out.

Absolutely loved it. Made reference to a lot of iconic pop-cultural and newsworthy events of this decade, which I think made it all the more relatable. It was very cool the relationship that Uncle Eddie was able to establish with his niece, which helped him to examine himself a little closer and so be more honest with himself.

Someone recommended this book to me as the best memoir she had ever read. Suffice to say, it can be difficult to take book recommendations from people you only marginally know...
I have trouble with a book if I don't like the main character, and the author/uncle here is too promiscuous, reinforces too many negative gay stereotypes, and is too full of himself for the job he did "saving" his niece, for me to have many positive feelings toward him. The parenting struggles are certainly real, and kept me in the book, which I was reading during a time of raising a teenager alone by myself. It reads vaguely like fiction, which helps as well, although I had asked for the recommendation of a memoir because I was feeling like reading something more representative of that genre for a change.

This is a great memoir about an uncle and his niece. Edwin Wintle is single, childless and gay living a stylish life in NYC when his recovering alcoholic sister turns to him for help with her troubled 13 year old daughter. Uncle Eddy moves Tiffany to NYC and enrolls her in school. While they have always gotten along quite well on their numerous overnight and weekend visits, he is unprepared for the reality of parenting a 13 year old. Heartwrenching, honest, humourous and smart this one will likely be in my top ten reads for the year.
I highly recommend this to anyone but it will be of particular interest to those who love memoirs, narrative non-fiction or anyone who like me has no kids and is curious to see what it would be like to take on a siblings troubled child.

Read my friend's book. Just do it. Thanks.

What an inspiring book!!! This uncle is the kind of person everybody needs as a teen -- loving, consistent, cool, and not afraid to do the hard things that would make the teen reeeaaaally angry.

I really enjoyed this book, more than I thought I would, actually. The mixed reviews had me leery, but my trepidation was unwarranted. The age difference between the author and his niece is approximately the same as between me and my (twin) nieces, and I found myself able to relate to much of what he wrote: the mercurial nature of the teenage female temperament, the desire to maintain status as the "cool" uncle balanced with the desire to establish boundaries and the struggle to keep a young person from making life-altering mistakes.

I just wish there had been some sort of epilogue letting readers know how Tiffany's doing now. Better yet, it would be awesome if she stuck with developing her own writing skills and some day we get a book retelling the tale from her perspective.

Book reads quite well, but had the feel of a fiction piece to me as I went through it; not that he was making up details, but that they're so precise at times it was tough to accept such exact recall (though he mentions near the end he was taking notes, of a sort).
There were a couple of points at which I nearly gave up on the book, between Wintle's shallowness and his refusal to deal with Tiffany's manipulative behavior. And then, he'd come through with an honest (often somewhat painful) revelation about his life that made it easier to care about the outcome.

This book is one of my favorites. That has me angry, confused, laughing, and crying all in the same book.