Editorial Review For What Are You Looking At?
Dee Hill’s What Are You Looking At? reads like a memoir told from the back booth
of a diner, right after someone says, “You are not going to believe this.” The
book moves through childhood, family, work, school, Army life, friends, bars,
odd jobs, and run-ins with people who seem built to cause paperwork. It is less
a straight plot and more a chain of stories, each one trying to outdo the last
without looking too proud of itself.
The book works through memory, humor, danger, family chaos,
and survival. Dee writes about a father with Navy stories, a mother with rules,
relatives with problems, friends with schemes, and strangers who somehow walk
in with life advice. The voice is blunt and fast. It does not stop to polish
the mess. It points at the mess, laughs, and asks why everyone else is acting
shocked.
The strength of the book is its voice. Dee Hill has timing,
and the timing does a lot of the lifting. A story about plumbing on a submarine
turns into a comic set piece. A childhood birthday party becomes a small
kingdom in collapse. A Model UN trip becomes proof that hotel windows needed
better planning. The book keeps finding comedy in events that should have come
with forms, helmets, and maybe a priest on standby.
It fits well with comic memoirs, story collections, and
personal essays that lean on voice more than plot. Readers who like clean,
gentle reflection should bring a helmet. Readers who enjoy family stories,
barroom history, school chaos, strange jobs, and memoirs with teeth will have a
better time. The book has the feel of someone sorting through life by filing
each disaster under a letter and moving on.
What Are You Looking At? is a fun pick for readers
who want a memoir that does not behave. It is rude, alive, sharp, and full of
stories that sound too strange to fake. Recommended for readers who like humor
with bruises, family lore with bite, and a narrator who somehow survives each
scene with enough energy left to make it worse.
What Are You Looking At? is the second book of a
trilogy. The first book is How I Got Beat Up By The FBI When I Was Four
Years Old and the third will be How I Got Arrested By The Coast Guard
When I Was Six Years Old.