Author: Jessi Klein
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

Jessi Klein is a stand-up comic and a comedy writer. Part memoir, part musings on life, with the feel of a set of essays, Klein is (unsurprisingly) quite funny. She has the good comedienne's knack for finding the raw spot of vulnerability, ridiculousness, insecurity, or pain and making it humorous and, occasionally, uncomfortable.

Author: Maggie Nelson
Rating: 3 Stars
Review By: Shana

Upon finishing this book, I was and remain quite conflicted in how I feel about it. The writing itself is evocative and interesting. The subject matter is clearly serious and compelling - a sort of wandering exploration of how a murder impacts a family, the course of a trial, how certain events intersected with the author's life at the time. But the writing itself, though evocative and interesting, sometimes feels overwrought.

Author: Augusten Burroughs
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

Augusten Burroughs may be my favorite memoirist. His sense of humor is ribald, irreverent, self-deprecating, and decidedly flamboyant. It is also, I imagine, an acquired taste. Here Burroughs is chronicling his alcoholism, a work-staged intervention, his month-long stay at rehab, and his subsequent efforts at sobriety.

Author: Eric Manheimer 
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

​I am very conflicted about this book. The author, a former medical director at Bellevue Hospital, uses twelve patients (himself included) as a touchstone to discuss his life, his career, and numerous social issues surrounding medical care. As such, each chapter is its own vignette, though themes and some of his colleagues and family make repeat appearances. 

Author: Amy Liptrot ​
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

​A thoughtful memoir recounting the author's alcoholism and journey to sobriety. Much here is not new, though it is rendered in lovely prose. In many ways, addiction stories are similar, with lives spiraling out of control, friendships tested, health endangered, and usually an undercurrent of trying to escape the traumas and disappointments (whether big or small) of life. Then again, each person is individual and the vagaries of life that led them to the substance they come to abuse are different. 

Author: Patricia Lockwood
Rating: 5 Stars
Review By: Shana

What a singular experience -- strangely hilarious, poignant, insightful, profane, and extremely poetic (unsurprising, given that Lockwood is a poet). This does not read like a standard memoir, it is not entirely linear and it not only concentrates on the author's father as a central force, but also explores her mother, siblings, and husband.  

Author: Dan Lyons​ 
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

​A funny and slightly disturbing memoir recounting journalist Dan Lyons’s brief stint at a tech start-up (HubSpot). Lyons spent most of his career as a journalist, reporting on business and technology matters. However, after years as a reporter and in the spate of media outlet downsizing, he finds himself desperate for a job and decides to roll the dice and try a tech start-up (an industry he has long reported on). He brings his keen eye and foreknowledge of technology business to his new job, and what follows is a fish-out of water story that will make any reader over the age of 35 feel old.

Author: Sarah Hepola
Rating: 4​ Stars
Review By: Shana

​Simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking. This is a wonderful memoir and I highly recommend it, especially the audio version read by the author. Hepola turns a wry and honest eye upon herself, exploring the roots of her drinking as well as the impact of coming of age as a woman in a time of fad diets and ever increasing body scrutiny (both from others and from oneself).  

Author: Mike Massimino
​Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

​This memoir is practically bursting with optimism and good-natured persistence, with childhood dreams and childlike wonder, with passion for the space program and learning and exploration, and with a love of teamwork striving for world-changing goals. 

Author: Samantha Irby
Rating: 5 Stars

Review By: Shana

​I absolutely loved this book. It comes at a time when I needed a book to make me belly laugh, snort, and nearly spew out my tea with shock and amusement. Irby pulls no punches, skirts no issues, avoids no intimacy with her cutting, ribald, downright dirty, and foul-mouthed humor. But it is humor with heart and real insight.  She relays the messy and the broken and the tragic, but with wit and attitude. Absolutely recommended so long as you aren't queasy about bathroom humor, sex, and some unfortunate events accompanying a cremation scattering.