Please give Emily Lewis another big hello as we welcome her back to share her latest Book Club review.
I loved this book and yet I feel strangely hesitant to review it. I think that’s mainly because I normally write about fictional books, and re-viewing an autobiography seems more personal to the author, some-how. I don’t want to slag off Sue! She seems like an ace person. I read this mainly trying to relate everything she mentioned to how long it happened before The Great British Bake Off, as that’s what I mainly know her for, and I think this is another reason why I was hesitant to review this. I know (or knew) so little about her. But I’ll give it a go anyway.
Spectacles is a memoir by Sue Perkins, more or less telling the story of her life so far. The book does move chronologically, but with lots of jumping backwards and forwards which I found to be slightly confusing at some points. She has a tendency to go off on tangents, and sometimes I lost the plot a bit. Despite this, she writes with ease and lots of humour, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I particularly loved the part where she describes her road rage, it had me in tears! I also loved reading about her family, I hope they are that bonkers in real life. She writes of them with such love and fondness as well, it’s quite touching.
I found Sue to be quite self-deprecating which I suppose is a common trait in comedians, but made me want to shake her a little bit. She downplays any academic achievements, including going to Cambridge. She is obviously very intelligent and funny and was deserving of her place there.
I think this book is fantastic to read even if you know nothing whatsoever about Sue. It doesn’t really matter that she’s on tv, it’s just a funny and honest account of her life, and not just of the good things either. She tackles loss, illness and mistakes made with such openness it’s refreshing. I suppose one of the reasons I’m not generally drawn to biographies is because I don’t really buy into the cult of celebrities – I’m not interested in putting them on pedestals and glorifying them. I didn’t have to worry about any of that with this book though – it reminds you that everyone is the same, in the best possible way.
I honestly hope this is the first of many books, because she has such a flair for comedic writing, I’d happily read anything else she wrote.
What did you think, did you also like Sue’s memoir? Did you also think she was a bit self deprecating or was that just me?
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