Miss New York Has Everything by Lori Jakiela

Title

Miss New York Has Everything

Author

Lori Jakiela

Copyright

2006

It seems to be a theme recently for me to read books that I would normally not be reading. This is one of those books that I would usually not even find mildy interesting, but now am so glad I read. You may have figured out if you follow this blog that I do not post all the books I read on the blog itself. If I don't like a book, it doesn't go up. Very subjective, I know, but I'm not about to reccommend books that I don't like as a reader.

This book is a memoir about Jakiela's time as a flight attendant in the eighties. It is incredibly funny and charming, the characters in the book are vividly portrayed and even the ones you don't particularly like, you can see and the whole people that they were. Lori's voice is witty and doesn't skimp on the self-observations and doesn't try to hide the embarrassing moments in her life. In fact, the book skims over most of the positive events in her life and focuses on the difficult, the uncomfortable, the insane, and ultimately the devastating.

Although this is a memoir, it is not told in chronological order. Times and dates are consistantly unclear, and truthfully it doesn't really matter. Don't put a lot of effort into remembering who the characters are outside of Jakiela's mother and father. Usually characters come into the book at the beginning of the section they're in and exit at the end of it.

I highly highly highly reccommend this book. Sometimes you will laugh out loud. Sometimes you will cry. Sometimes you will do both on the same page. The themes of this book include (did you guess it?) the parent/child relationship, home and escape from it, family and what makes us part of a family, what it means to be a woman, identity, and loss of the things we love.