Customer Reviews

Miss New York Has Everything

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I realized this wasn't going to be a "pick-me-up" book when I saw that the common thread to each chapter is the disappointment that comes when one realizes a dream, only to find that the dream wasn't as great as one first imagined. Sure enough, the melancholy in Miss New York Has Everything is as thick as peanut butter. Some may be unable to get past this sadness and thus find the book unappealing. But, I found three factors which offset the melancholy enough to make the book entertaining. First, Jakiela knows how to put a sentence together. Her writing style is accessible and powerful, thus making the book a quick read. Second, she sprinkles just enough humor in the story to take the edge off the moroseness. Finally, the emotion behind the story is genuine, thereby making it easy to relate to Jakiela and her travails. Because of these factors, I actually felt a little bit hopeful for Jakiela by the end of Miss New York Has Everything. I also felt good for having spent time reading this painfully honest, yet emotionally rewarding, memoir.

This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. From start to finish, I was deeply impressed-often to the point of visibly shaking my head and/or making vocal noises loud enough to attract my wife's attention-by Jakiela's skills at understated humor, and tenderness without sappiness, and her ability to blend those two qualities with exquisite and devastating effectiveness. Moreover, Jakiela offers a unique perspective on commercial air travel: I will never again board an airplane without remembering Jakiela and endeavoring to behave in a manner that will not leave me skewered on the end of her pen.

After reading a few chapters of this book, I was a little disappointed. "Miss New York Has Everything" is promoted as the story of a small-town girl who becomes a flight attendant in order to live in New York--but the first half of the book is devoted to Jakiela's childhood and upbringing in a quirky American family in Trafford, Pennsylvania. Don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with the first part. It's funny and quite lovely. It's just not what I expected when I bought the book.

I had to wait approximately 130 pages for Jakiela to move to New York, where she finds a life that's absolutely lacking in the glamour she envisioned while watching Marlo Thomas in "That Girl." While traveling around the world, sleeping in horrible hotels, cleaning after rude passengers or looking for love in all the wrong places, Jakiela is someone you like, someone you find yourself rooting for. The end of the book was touching and moving without ever being maudlin. And it's nice to know that even though she no longer lives here, Lori Jakiela still loves New York as much as I do.

Do you ever pick up a book and know a few pages into it that you are reading something special? I didn't know where the story was going, which is befitting a good story-- but I could relate to everything that happens in this endearing memoir. It is a book about life's dreams and disappointments, reality, relationships, family and growing up ("coming of age"). Lori Jakiela has written this book with grace and humor and an embarrassingly honest demeaner.

If you like a book that's as funny as it is sad, as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming, read this one. Tragic comedy at its best. The cover is very misleading, however. I originally picked this up thinking it would be a light beach read, but the book is much more than that. I was surprised, but happily so. Highly recommended reading.

I read this book in a day, mostly in my bathtub. I just couldn't put it down. I love the chapter about the poodle most of all, but it's all so good, so funny and so sad. I could relate to so much in this book!!! I haven't read a book that I connected with like this one in such a long time. The writing is beautiful also. In short, this is a classic, brilliant book. I'm reading it out loud to strangers and friends and recommending it to everyone.

maybe i was in the wrong mood for this book but i found it dreary rather than funny. It is full of her disappointments and wrong turns, and while she can wax philosophical about all of these, that wasnt enough to make it an enjoyable read. I love New York and small town life but i didnt find much to like in this one.

Julie/Julia and the Jen Lancaster books are much funnier, as are the books by Bill Bryson (although space those out...he gets a bit sarcastic and wearing if read too closely together)

By the time you finish reading Miss New York Has Everything, you will wish you were Lori Jakiela's friend, while feeling like you already are.

Lori's story is endearing, relatable, at times funny, at times sad.

I've read quite a few memoir's this year, but there was something particularly touching and special about this one.

Miss New York deserves everything!

I loved this book!!! Reading it was like reading the story of my life even though I grew up in the desert and not in Pittsburgh and even though I never lived out my own New York dreams. Like the author here, I've always been afraid to fly. ;)This book feels universal because it's all about never giving up on dreams and love for family and wanting something more out of life. I could totally relate to so much here, especially the author's voice which was so warm and down-to-earth and funny, she felt like an old friend. I laughed with her and cried with her and by the time I closed the book, I felt like my life had changed. I can't wait for her next book. Or the movie!!

What a great, literary, funny, sad book about growing up in working class Pittsburgh. Not since Sedaris ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY have I laughed outloud like this. That said, her chapter/essay "You're Looking At A Miracle" is one of the most heartbreaking pieces I've ever read. I literally had to put down the book to keep from crying. Her working class portraits are nothing less than perfect,and her father is one of the best characters in recent literature. Add in a pill-popping nun, a job interview with a porno mag, and a couple rough years as a flight attendant, and you have one of the best, arcing narratives since Thurber's MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES. If I could give it more stars, I would. Buy this book.