Julie Ehlers's Reviews > Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays

As just about every other reviewer has noted, the tone of this is pretty different from Sedaris's subsequent work that's earned him so much adoration. It's darker, more misanthropic, occasionally shocking. But if you can resist comparing this to later books, it stands on its own. I thought some of these stories (particularly "Don's Story") were hilarious, and they were definitely unlike any other short stories I'd read—you can see why this collection made such a big impact on critics when it was released. My one complaint is that the main characters' voices in most of the stories were very similar, so it got a little samey after a while. But finishing with a few essays was a good idea. You can't really think poorly of any book that ends with "Santaland Diaries."