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Book Review of Oh the Glory of It All

Oh the Glory of It All
Leigh avatar reviewed on + 378 more book reviews


** spoiler alert **

Had Sean Wilsey's parents not been ridiculously wealthy this memoir would never have been published. It seems like a real-life "Youth in Revolt," but with San Francisco street names strewn about and only a hint of amusement. I didn't find anything particularly inspiring about the writing, itself; there were no fabulous metaphors or turns-of-phrase. It was bland. At the very end - two pages from it? - he makes an insightful observation about the nature of a memoir. That paragraph was moving.

Wilsey's demonization of his step-mother seemed unreal; surely, a woman cannot be this evil. I have my doubts about the veracity of Wilsey's claims; there are always two sides to every story.

I found the chapters on the Amity school to be just plain weird. Wilsey seems proud to have been brainwashed. It's not normal to cry for three days and feel a compulsive need to confess every transgression from stealing naked pics of your mom to stealing a dinner fork.

I almost feel like he's trying to establish a "poor-little-rich-boy" mentality. The rest of us didn't have dads flying us to boarding schools in helicopters and enough money to send us to Italy for four years.

Alsowho has crab lice for a year and doesn't treat it?!? Eww!