emma's Reviews > Small Fry: A Memoir

Have you ever read a book that you can’t shut up about?

As in, a reading experience that takes up so much room in your brain that you can barely think about anything else, let alone talk about it?

That was how I felt about this book. It was consuming.

I must have said some variation on the words “You know, Steve Jobs was actually a pretty bad guy...like, I’m reading some pretty disturbing stuff about how he was as a dad.”

This is obviously a very reductionist take on not only Steve Jobs but this book. Rest assured - this statement was a mere test, and if anyone responded with anything other than the most blatant disinterest I launched into a monologue.

This is beautiful, uncomfortable, stay-with-you-forever writing.

Usually I hate when books take up valuable cover space with blurbs and compliments. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR STORY, I yell at the pages, drawing unnecessary attention to myself in the bookstore by scolding inanimate objects.

But there's a line on the back of this that sums up the experience of reading it better than any synopsis:

"mesmerizing, discomfiting reading."

The best memoirs show an astounding level of empathy. Not necessarily sympathy, or forgiveness, or unearned kindness, but the empathy it takes to tell other people’s stories honestly where they come into contact with your own.

This does so masterfully, even in the face of some of the most complicated relationships I’ve read about.

A few weeks after reading it, I still think about it a lot.

Bottom line: I am going to begin carrying a copy of this with me at all times, so that when any tech bro worshipfully mentions Steve Jobs I can smack them with this book and then tell them to read it.