Fun slice of life stories
Cynthia Kaplan is something like a female David Sedaris. She is more than willing to share with the world all manner of embarrassing and completely personal stories or in the case of "Very Special Thanks" takes the opportunity to let her one-time mentor know exactly what she thinks of his lousy advice.
Unlike some memoirists, Kaplan has not fought in a war or visited a famine-plagued African village, but she has endured plenty of horrors, like a Disney Cruise and the American health care system and describes them in all their ugliness.
Her description of an audition for The Daily Show had me laughing so loud that I was in tears, and even though I have never auditioned for any Comedy Central show, I felt I could identify with her.
I see myself or others I know in so many of Kaplan's stories. I know the aluminum safety ladder of which she speaks (Ours actually had survived a few moves and was located beneath my parent's bed in its original box and very helpfully, sealed with tape. So, naturally, my fear was that we would all die in the blaze that engulfed our house while trying to open the taped-shut box.)
