"The Emotionary" book review

relatability + embarrassment

embarrbility

n. a feeling of something being similar in regards to a series of events which triggers self-consciousness and awkwardness; secondhand embarrassment.

I didn’t know what to expect from Eden Sher’s book, The Emotionary.  I was alerted of its existence not even three weeks ago, and the concept intrigued me:  Eden Sher—an actress on the show The Middle, which is a guilty pleasure of mine—decided to create a book of fictional words based on emotions she has, with the book formatted as a dictionary with graphic interpretations throughout.  I was in a Barnes and Noble this afternoon killing time between movies, and I found this book with the intention of flipping through it before requesting it at my local library.  The joke was on me:  within minutes, I found my way to the in-store Starbucks, purchased an iced chai latte, and sat down at one of the few remaining tables and devoured the book within an hour.

I really liked it!  Eden’s emotions aren’t unusual to me—and often times it was a painfully relatable experience.  Perhaps it’s just that I’m also very neurotic.  Like Eden, I could be driving when suddenly my daydreams make me remember the time I was in kindergarten and I got in trouble for knocking over another kid’s block castle (in my defense, the infrastructure of that castle was poorly executed and would have been knocked down if anyone had sneezed on it).  I feel like I’m getting off-topic…

Another plus for this book is Julia Wertz’s illustrations.  I promise that this isn’t a backhanded compliment:  I enjoyed how minimalistic the art design was for these comic demonstrations, because they didn’t detract from Sher’s words.  Wertz does a lot with…WAIT A MINUTE!  I just looked up Julia Wertz on Goodreads and apparently she has several volumes of a series called The Fart Party.  This is the strangest Goodreads discovery I’ve come across!

There’s no way I’m going to be able to refocus on this review.  I think I’ll just make up another word and grade this.

distract + internet

disternet

n.  The feeling when you’re trying to do something productive—i.e. write a book review—and get sidetracked when you find out that one of the cowriters of the book in question also wrote a bunch of books about a family that is known for farting, which leads you to an online black hole.

Rating:  B.