Very funny, a disc worth hearing many times. Outrageous, probably true life excerpts told in excruciating detail. I believe the woman ate at least two thesauri. I had to play it several times because I missed stuff while I was laughing!

Sandra Tsing Loh's Depth Takes A Holiday is a wonderful and hilarious collection of essays about Los Angeles. This collection of essays offers us a view of L.A from an "Overeducated, underemployed" late bloomer who just happens to be drowning in student loan payments (sound familiar). Loh's essays offers a wide assortment of topics from "The Joy of Temping" to "Tonya Harding, Actress". Loh's portrayal of everything L.A in a comical view makes it difficult to stop reading. The only time this book dissapoints is when you realize your at the end. Everyone whose ever been to, or heard of L.A will find something to relate to. If you live in L.A or are coming to L.A you should read this book.

Sandra Tsing Loh's collection of essays called Depth Takes a Holiday is, ironically, an in-depth journey of common, every day life with Loh as our driver. A native of Los Angeles, Loh depicts the many social changes of this vast urban wasteland known as home to millions of other Los Angelinos. The reader gets a better, if not comical, idea of what is going on and where LA and it's inhabitants are from and where they are going. LA is demonstrated as an ever-growing melting pot, both culturally and socially, with its residents who are a people of a lost identity in both aspects. One of the many things I love about this book is Loh's lighthearted approach which shows readers the serious effects of living in a multi-cultural environment where English-only rules dominate. Anyone who resides in LA and feels the need to laugh at its harsh realities will enjoy this book. I did.

Melanie Ulloa Cal State LA, Liberal Studies Major July 21, 1999

Depth Takes a Holiday takes you to the reality of living in Los Angeles on the immigrant side. Sandra Tsing Loh's essays portrays the adventures of a girl interacting in one of the most diverse cities in the world. Using a very fresh style Sandra Tsing Loh approaches daily life problems in a very funny way. Los Angeles, California is a synonymous of rich and famous, paradise and glory, and Sandra Tsing Loh sees the city in a different manner. She explores Los Angeles with the eyes of a minority group, where a good meal is a fast meal and cheap. Depth Takes a Holiday is fun to read as if you were in a rolling coaster in which you laugh and yell for every essay you finish reading.

You know, I just couldn't get into this book. It reminded me a little of the cartoon, Cathy, and of Briget Jones's Diary (book, not movie): I feel as though someone needs to smack all these woman upside the head and tell them, "Get a life!"
I bought the book expecting to love it. I got about a third of the way through, and it just wasn't really going anywhere, so I said to myself, I'm over it.
It felt as though she was just trying too hard to be funny.
So I sold my copy on Amazon.[com.]

I'd rate Sandra Tsing Loh's book a "qualified" 4. Sandra's a writer's writer, and we've all heard the quote:

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." ~Ray Bradbury

Sandra gives us an admirable description of a year in her "fictional" life that completely illustrates the quote. However, if you've never tried to be a writer (whether you succeeded or not)...you won't get it.

Sandra's a great essay writer and a standout on NPR, but in this piece, she gets stuck horizontally on living in L.A., and aging. These semi-themes feed the underlying issue of the novel; how difficult the creative writing process can be; how obsessive are those who become a slave to it. As a result, unless you're in the book to laugh at her witticisms about living in the Valley, or you need some "women on aging" jokes, you may just hate this book!

While flying through a year in her life with hubby and near-perfect sister, while trying her hand at web writing and desperately trying not to finish a novel, Sandra dances off into flights of fancy which are illustrated in funny charts, graphs and pictures that help us visualize all of the soup floating around inside of her brain. Some would view this as a leap of faith for an ADHD female, others just think it is a clear illustration that women whine.

Hey, I'm an aging woman attempting to write, I love visualization and illustration in a story, and I even get some of the cultural references to Van Nuys, although I'm on the other coast. And I give it 4 stars. Unless you can relate or participate in at least two of these endeavors, you may want to steer clear of "A Year in Van Nuys"...which you'll consider a waste of time.

Sandra's really having a Bad Day, in fact, she's having a Bad Year! Sandra's just turned 36 years old, has eye bags, and is no longer Young, Hip, and Fresh. If she feels this bad at 36, I wonder what's she going to be like if she makes it to 46 years old. Sandra's a writer trying to write that great American novel, but she's got writer's block. She also writes for a failing women's website, and has a TV sitcom based on her life that's due out soon but it looks like it's a failure already. She's neurotic, a mess and quickly becoming a non-achiever. She hopes to make "Haggard" an admired term of endearment in LA.

Well, reading this book is like an adrenaline rush. Most of this book was very entertaining. There were some very funny chapters I could easily relate to. Sandra has a lot to say, and where she gets all this information & ideas from, I don't know. It's amazing! I found myself caught up with her and rushing right along with her to the end of the book. She looks at life in a crazy, and different sort of way.

I think Sandra has only begun to express herself, and there's lots more to come in print from her. Let's hope so. She's funny, crazy, and a delight to spend an evening with. Recommended!

Allegedly "wickedly witty", this is a tiresome attempt at satirizing the obvious targets of LA's population. The main character is a 30-year-old PhD candidate in women's studies who comes to realize that she is not living they way she wants to be. Shacked up in a shabby grad-schoolish house the Valley with her longtime (unsuccessful) writer boyfriend, she longs for upscale living, and a designer kitchen. She begins to question her lifestyle and choices, and then thanks to an unexpected windfall, the couple can start living the dream life, with a new car, condo in downtown LA, etc. Predictably, these things are exposed as being empty, blah blah blah. Although short, it's not worth the time.

Perhaps this book speaks to you more if you've lived it, but I thoroughly enjoyed this treatment of a grad student's rather bumpy transition to the "real world" (to the extent that LA is the real world). The heroine, ground down by years of genteel poverty, succumbs to the buried longing we all have for life as depicted in upscale catalogs, with predictable but hilarious consequences. She also experiences the rather rude realization that most of us have to make, that life often does not work out as planned, and manages to achieve something like a state of grace as a result.

Some of the LA characters and events seem like cardboardy stereotypes, but in general there is a depth of feeling here that is absent in the author's rather brittle NPR commentaries.

If Sandra Tsing Loh lives up to her potential, she could be the Jane Austen of our day. She is capable of viewing her characters and our society with a rare and wonderful mix of irony and compassion; I'm hopeful that she will not succumb to the temptation of the one-liner, but will continue to develop her genuine talents in her forthcoming novel and novels to come.

Bronwyn and her hussband Paul and his brother Jonathan are idealistic but ambitious intellectuals living in Los Angeles. They become involved in series of ventures that fail and trends that prove disappointing. Attempts to complete a PhD, get a tenured academic post, write a novel, sell a screen play, make money in real estate, and start a computer software company each end in failure. Each new fashion becomes outmoded.
They are contrasted with Paul's parents who live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and winter in Florida in steady unglamorous prosperity. The parents work and save, celebrate a fiftieth wedding anniversary, and go to church on Sundays.
The satire is sharp but not savage, and most of the characters are nice people. The book culminates in the liberal ambivalence produced by the Watts riots and drifts to an inconclusive ending. I'm glad she resisted the temptation to a dramatic tragic ending but would have liked to have known more of what became of Paul and Bronwyn.

This book is horrible. It's not funny; it's not enlightening; it's not a literary treasure. I struggled to finish this book. I do not recommend it.

I loved the audio version of this book. The print version probably doesn't do it justice, as so much of the impact is in the accents and inflections of Loh's performance. This is not a mean-spirited book. One can hear Loh's affection for her parents even as she pokes fun an their idiosyncrasies. As an audio reviewer I listen to many books, but Loh's earns top marks. It's a funny and touching tribute to our multicultural society.

This is Sandra Tsing Loh's landmark work. In it, she weds her keen powers of observation with a story that is heartfelt and important. Readers (and listeners of NPR) who are familiar with her more pointedly comedic commentaries will relish this work, the full blossoming of a wonderfully unique writer. The landscape of this memoir is highly specific, but the themes are universal. It is both gorgeously written and highly affecting.

While on vacation, I picked up this book looking forward to one of my favorite subjects. Frankly, I was so disappointed I didn't finish the book and went back to my others. For that reason, don't look at this review as conclusive. But I love to read and this is one of the few books I ever started and didn't finish so be forewarned.