Review of "You Can Tell You’re a Midwesterner When . . . ," by Dale Grooms

Review of

You Can Tell You’re a Midwesterner When . . . , by Dale Grooms ISBN 9781571662170


Four out of five stars

 This is a book of rural “wisdom,” a collection of generally folksy sayings that are a combination of the frivolous and profound. Nearly all of the sayings begin with a “..ya” although a few begin with “you” or “yer.” They are often deliberately grammatically incorrect in an attempt to make them sound more folksy.

 As a former Iowa country boy, I found the first one on page 24 to be one of the most amusing:

“.. ya know what it feels like to whiz on an electric fence.”

In general, country boys can be divided into two categories, those that did take a whiz on an electric fence and those that convinced another boy to go first.

 Published in Iowa, this book is meant to be a frivolous exaggeration of how rural Iowans talk and act. In that sense, this book succeeds, although some may be put off by the deliberately poor grammar.