Banango Lit

selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee is Megan Boyle’s first book and it is a very interesting debut.

The first thing the reader notices about the book is the form it takes: the poems/ pieces seem to be arranged chronologically, so the reader feels like, in a way, they are reading a diary of Megan Boyle’s life. And this diary seems interesting. Included in it is Boyle’s piece “everyone I’ve had sex with”, which was originally published at Thought Catalog.

I bring that up because the thing this book reminded me of the most was a very long Thought Catalog piece. It is a look into the life of a 20something living on the East Coast and it takes a slightly detached look at that life. In “3.01.09”, Boyle titles the piece “i am kind of a disgusting person” but then does not really pass judgment on the events she describes.

The way this feels like a long diary is very effective. Boyle does not attempt to “flower” the language up to make it feel “more poetic” because it is not meant to do that.

The last piece in here is called “lies i have told” and seems to be the piece that ties the book together and makes us feel something strong although I am not completely sure what we are feeling. We are feeling sad by the end of the book. We are feeling unsure about our own lives.

Lines I feel strongly positively about:

i have frequently thought ‘i am trying to be okay’ in the past 48 hours
without really knowing what ‘okay’ is or what i need to do to be
‘trying’ - “6.25.10”

i just ate half a xanax and i’m going to watch things on hulu.com until
i fall asleep

at 3AM i will wake with my mouth open and probably want to eat a
cookie- “10.19.09”

Overall this book is doing a good job of telling what Megan Boyle is and what being a 20something is and what living on the East Coast is and since I only knew how to be one of those things, I learned a lot.

This review is not sufficient and I am sorry. Buy this book.

-Justin