I absolutely LOVED Sheffield's Love is a Mixed Tape memoir. It was very touching, very witty, and written in my favorite style: reporterese. I've been wanting to read his second one since it came out, but I'm usually too cheap to buy hardcovers. So, on an ill-fated trip to Barnes and Noble last week (it was unsupervised and unplanned, which meant I left with seven books in a bag. Sigh.), I was elated to see it in paperback.
It didn't take long to read (this is why I love reporterese). But, it wasn't as great as the first one. I loved all the chapter titles (I was typically singing the song in my head), but I wasn't always sure on how the title fit the chapter. Sometimes he did a great job of tying it to his life; sometimes, not so much.
It wasn't as heartfelt as the first, which was disappointing. This seemed to just trail his bumbling through girls, and teaching ninth grade, I see enough of that every day.
This one seemed a little forced - one of those "Hey, writer, we as your publisher loved your first one, so do it again." I wish publishers would realize that you can't recreate things like that. That's not how writing works.
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