“Social anxiety is fascinating like that: it’s not the big things that break you, it’s the small ones.” 

After quickly learning why the title of this marvelous book is not ungrammatical, I came across that little gem of observational insight that immediately made the author and me seem sufficiently simpatico to proceed. Both bits of data made me doubly relax as I waited for the world to do the author wrong. It was inevitable. I knew the small things would pile up, and the vicarious glutton in me couldn’t wait to see it happen. After all, worse for you is better for me, right? I wasn’t disappointed, either in my expectations or in the narrative that followed. 

“I was desperately lonely, but the anxiety of human interaction was stronger than the loneliness.” 

That line actually had me looking over my shoulder. I knew I was in good hands. After that, it was easy to relax into the hypnotic humor and quiet pathos of another being locked in mortal combat with the self-affronts of life. (I’d met that incorrigible duck before, if only in another guise.) With the relaxation came the pure enjoyment of great humor delivered incredibly well and great tragedy deliberately understated. I laughed out loud, laughed again, and kept on laughing until the end; I shook my head in sadness and disbelief, and kept on shaking it until the end. You see, this book may be predicated on anxiety, but it doesn’t make you anxious. It makes you laugh. And it makes you cry. I laughed and cried because it’s so well told, oh so sad, and so gosh-darned emotively self-revealing. Like life. 

By the way, I loved the duck… the book… whatever.