Secrets of an Old Typewriter: Stories from a Smart and Sassy Small Town… (edition 2011)

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program. I enjoyed the content and I think a good editing could make this book great. ( )

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewer's program but I have to admit I would have been attracted to the cover immediately if it were in a book store. It's a sweet, short novella filled with reminiscences about growing up in a small town. I don't want to beat a dead horse, if one looks at the other reviews, but this book needs a better editor. The stories are good, some of the writing is excellent but the structure and grammar could use some tweaking. The e-book format is not my favorite but I think it's a great idea in order to get this book into as many hands as possible. I think some people will find it quite quaint (not meant pejoratively). I enjoy that tone myself. The author is a progressive thinker and the flavor of the book reminds one of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, a book I admire. She's irreverent regarding the small town mores she grew up with. ( )

As unbiased as I can be... Like a great record album it is perfectly sequenced. I have read all of these multiple times and I kept reading wanting to know what was next. It feels like a conversation with Susie - intelligent, profound, funny, heartbreaking, enlightening.

I love the turn it takes after the first third when nostalgia through a modern lens gives way to postmodern social critique, signaling a seismic shift from comforting sepia to brazen technicolor. Exhilarating and shocking and authentic. A fully realized being laying bare every influence ( )

I came across a notice about this book on facebook. The author is so passionate about animal issues, I figured I would like it. I was surprised to find that the book is about so much more. Clearly animals are Susie's first love, and her care about this subject brought me to tears in a couple of moments. I also thought it was great to read about her hometown though. I liked what she said about classic movies and movie stars too - like James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. I thought this was really fun and easy to read. Meant the world to me to find someone like me. ( )

I thought this book was a remarkable set of personal essays told with wit and honesty. I find it hard to believe that some of the other reviewers even read this book or even gave it a fair shot. I realize we have become a culture in which "Twilight" is high art, but this book is literate and creative and deeply confessional in nature. I feel like I learned a great deal about the author, her upbringing, and how that shapes her current view of today's world. She has a distinct and compelling style (something that should be celebrated in the literary community), and I can't help but wonder if some of the below folks would level similar accusations against Vonnegut or Twain, Hawthorne or Melville. Folks, it is a collection of first-person essays forming a kind of memoir. There are no "characters." These are colorful people in the author's life populating an equally colorful town. Like many other classic essayists, Sexton takes a spark from real-life or an overview of a moment in time to use as a lens on some matter of import today. It is a clever approach and should be appreciated for its form and substance. If you like reading cookbooks or gothic horror romances, don't read this book. If you enjoy beloved memories warmly shared and juxtaposed against contemporary perspectives on a world that sometimes seems perilously close to spinning out of control, then you will find this book appropriately challenging, enlightening, and fun. ( )