Book Review: "Is It Hot in Here? Or Am I Suffering for All Eternity for the Sins I Committed on Earth?" by Zach Zimmerman

How can you resist a book with a title like this? Comedian and writer Zach Zimmerman provides fodder for laughs, tears, and even some a-ha moments in this memoir-esque collection of essays and anecdotes about making peace with yourself.

Zimmerman chronicles growing up in a religious home (and his need to escape), coming to terms with his sexuality, trying to find love amidst online dating disasters, and other situations, including his family’s reactions to the COVID pandemic.

Interspersed between these essays are lists with titles like “Seven New Sins–and Tortures Too.” (Among those sins are “suggesting a book club book you’ve already read” and included among the tortures is “You are given six delicious Cadbury Creme Eggs and told one is filled with mayonnaise. (They are all filled with mayonnaise.)”

Some of these essays made me laugh out loud, some made me roll my eyes at the absurdity of the events Zimmerman described, and some actually made me think.

But after a while, everything started to have the same sarcastic tone, and some of the content was a little too precious for me. Yet this surely was an enjoyable break from heavy fiction!