The Might Queens of Freeville — Review by Chris

Everyone is writing memoirs these days. That's fine, but it begs the question: what does anyone have to write about regarding her or his life? (Whether they're making up information in their memoirs is a different question altogether.)

Amy Dickinson is an advice columnist who raised her daughter as a single mother in a strong matriarchal clan in a small town in New York. It had potential. I didn't exactly like her column, but every once in a while she hit the mark with great accuracy. I figured I'd give it a shot.

I had my first laugh on page 83, and I stopped reading.

Why? Why stop with my first chuckle? Well, it was too hard-earned. The story was almost completely second-person narrative for the first 60 pages or so, with an occasional quote (usually her side of the dialogue). It was self-deprecating, depressing, self-effacing and rather boring.

She told, rather than showed, her story — at least until Chapter 4, "Nothing's Too Much Trouble." By then, however, she had lost me.

Not to mention that in the first half of the book was I introduced to the aforementioned queens in the book title, except in passing.

To be fair, the book could have improved after page 83. However, I didn't want to invest any more time to find out.