May I Kiss You On the Lips, Miss Sandra? by Sandra Bernhard

May I Kiss You On the Lips, Miss Sandra? was one of the few books that weren’t packed during my move, so I decided to give it a try.

I don’t like to give bad reviews, because I know that just because I didn’t like a book, doesn’t mean that other people won’t enjoy it. So I’ll just try to give you my perspective.

I didn’t realize until the book was in my hands how disjointed May I is. Most sections are only a couple pages, and some are only a sentence. They don’t seem to have any relation to each other, except that sometimes sections seemed loosely grouped by a subject, like “smell”.

Much of May I deals with being a celebrity, which isn’t really something I personally find very interesting, and a lot of discusses other celebrities. The problem with that is that May I is from the 90s, and most of those references just don’t translate well 20 years later, though that might be my age talking. And I couldn’t quite tell which parts she was actually trying to claim happened (sleeping with the president?) and which parts she was just joking about.

I don’t really know much about Sandra Bernhardt, but judging from this book, her humor doesn’t really click with me. Actually, it doesn’t seem like most of May I was trying to be funny, but I didn’t feel very connected to the emotional moments, either.

Bernhardt has a few sections that have beautiful writing, but I found them to be the exception to the rule. Her attempts at poetry, I hate to say, seemed mostly juvenile. I think possibly the best written sections were about shoes.

I know that other people had different opinions on this book and I’d love to compare notes.