The Patron Saint of Used Cars and Second Chances

Book No: 30
Title: The Patron Saint of Used Cars and Second Chances
Author: Mark Millhone
Genre: Memoir
Completed: 6/16/09
No. of Pages: 192
Rating: 3/5*****

Mark Millhone and his family had a tough year, no doubt about it, the near death of their son, the passing of his mother, his father’s cancer diagnosis and his other son was bitten in the face by the family dog. All of these misfortunes have put a huge strain on the family, but most especially his marriage. So how does he deal with it? He buys a used BMW on eBay, leaves his family to fly to Texas with his dad, a man for whom the word stoic was invented, and drive the new car home. I don’t know about anyone else but if my husband did this without telling me I would not be pleased. So it comes as no surprise to me that this trip drives another wedge into the marriage.

While the tone of this book is often funny it is just as often fairly mundane. It’s a short book, with some interesting back story of Mr. Millhone’s upbringing in a clearly dysfunctional family, but for the most part there was no overwhelming feeling that I needed to find out what happened, unlike some other memoirs I have read in the past that were compelling and gripping in their execution. This was a nice, simple, easy read but the ending seems abrupt and while it wasn’t a bad book, it almost could have been a novella or short story because almost nothing really happens. I enjoyed the start of the book and the idea of the book, but in the end it was just okay.