The celebrity memoir that doesn’t live up to its expectations has become as ubiquitous as the genre itself. Even more disappointing are the tell-alls penned by authors looking to cash-in on their often-tenuous associations to figures of public curiosity.

Rarely do these books by jilted lovers, former friends or estranged children deliver on their claims.

Dear Friends:

I wish to personally apologize for all that went wrong with our first beekeeping workshop last Saturday at Chauncey Farm.

Someone let it slip to me about two weeks ago now. And it’s damn near driven me insane. They let it slip so casually too, like they’d said nothing interesting.

“The elderly love feeding the ducks.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I stood on my weather beaten front porch and waved to my sister as she pulled onto the road. Her daughter wrinkled her nose at me through the rearview mirror but I ignored it. Daniel tried so hard to be a good single mother to Grace, but she went overboard frequently. My niece was only six years old, but had the personality of a princess with a wand up her butt.

It was last Wednesday that Phillip Fish was medically declared the worst boy in the world. He had been sentenced to an hour in the school therapist’s office for crying in class and telling his teacher, Ms. Zebrowski, “I am the saddest boy that has ever lived. I hate everything. Even birthdays.”