4 out of 4 stars
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Dating Calamity: A Memoir of Odd Relationships by Angela Rosemary is a book in the nonfiction genre.
As the title clearly suggests, the author has reminisced at length about some of the relationships/dates she was involved in. The book opens with a forward where the author has provided a short context to the book. Most of the author’s relationships can be placed in the timeline ranging from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. The author mentions it beforehand that the events might not be in strict chronological order and obviously, all the names have been changed to protect the innocent or ‘the not so innocent’, as the author puts it.
The book is quite a short read, with its kindle edition numbering to some hundred and forty seven pages. Within these few pages the author has managed to pack numerous incidents, which kept me glued to the book, beginning with the quirky table of contents itself. The author’s style of writing is simple and frank. There is no particular order in which the author recounts her relationships, in fact, most of the time the author is recounting some particular experience or incident rather than going into the details of her relationship. I've used the word ‘relationship’ plenty of times, because sometimes the author is narrating some unforgettable (in a good or bad way) incident during her relationship, though in some cases she is remembering a particular date as well.
What kept my interest piqued was the author’s perspective, and her attempt to find some humor or some lesson to learn in every situation in this book. There are some incidents which were so silly, that I was laughing my head off, especially since they had happened for real. For instance, when the author kept crying “Mai To” when she was administered an anesthetic, and the nurse suspected that she was having an affair with a Chinese man, since her husband was not one. In the author’s own words, “I thought about this later, back in my room. Had I been speaking in a foreign language that I had never studied? How weird was this? “Mai To!” I thought out loud. Then it hit me. My toe had been hurting before the anesthesia kicked in. Maybe I had relived that injury while under anesthesia! I couldn’t help but to laugh, which made my stomach hurt. Then I wondered which would make a better story. Should I tell people that I had spoken a foreign language while under anesthesia, or should I tell them the truth?” The book has its good share of such tidbits of humor.
The author also shares some home truths and a few thoughts on the male species, with the readers. For example, when the author describes how her husband would never take out the trash, even when she had it all packed up and tied up for him. “Sometimes I have felt that b****ing just takes too much effort, and I might expend less energy if I just took that trash out myself. I might grumble a bit and then be done with it. I guess that is how men break us. They can procrastinate endlessly.”
Some of her experiences were downright dangerous, but the author’s lighthearted tone makes them seem less scary than they actually were. The humor, sarcasm, wit, and frankness which the author has displayed in this book, is definitely worth a read. The author wonders whether it is her oddity which attracts such odd men in her life, but I guess most women have experienced at least one such odd date like the author, which is why I recommend every female reader to go through this one (and men too, if they feel so inclined). I rate it 4 out of 4 stars.
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Dating Calamity
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