Book ~ "The Potty Mouth at the Table" (2013) Laurie Notaro

From Goodreads ~ Laurie Notaro thinks everyone’s nuts. Or maybe there’s just something wrong with her. Here, she examines the basic human condition of rudeness - other people’s rudeness, that is - in her latest uproariously funny collection. 

In her trademark irreverent style, Laurie recounts in detail such unfortunate situations as discovering that she wasn't on the viewable Facebook invite list for a good friend’s party, or standing behind a woman in the pharmacy line who says to the clerk, “Hi. I was wondering if you could tell me what a staph infection looks like?” and proceeds to embark on a fifteen-minute conversation that includes sentences like, “Infection can burrow.” 

So if you’ve ever found yourself wondering if the person seated next to you on the plane is being earnest when he tells the stewardess he will handle the emergency door in the event of a crash landing or spotted a chunk of something that could be chocolate under your keyboard and desperately wanted to eat it, then this collection of sometimes bizarre and always entertaining observations is for you. 

It's been a while since I've read one of Notaro's books.  I've enjoyed her books in the past.

Most of the rants stories were funny (like the one about her shower puff, when she has lunch with her ex-boyfriend, when she is suffering from the effects of eating falafel, and her rants about Yelpers) while others were just so-so.  She finishes off with a story of her friend, Kartz, who has brain cancer.

Book ~ "Spooky Little Girl" (2010) Laurie Notaro

From Goodreads ~ Death is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

Coming home from a Hawaiian vacation with her best girlfriends, Lucy Fisher is stunned to find everything she owns tossed out on her front lawn, the locks changed and her fiancé’s phone disconnected — plus she’s just lost her job. With her world spinning wildly out of her control, Lucy decides to make a new start and moves upstate to live with her sister and nephew.

But then things take an even more dramatic turn: A fatal encounter with public transportation lands Lucy not in the hereafter but in the nearly hereafter. She’s back in school, learning the parameters of spooking and how to become a successful spirit in order to complete a ghostly assignment. If Lucy succeeds, she’s guaranteed a spot in the next level of the afterlife — but until then, she’s stuck as a ghost in the last place she would ever want to be.

Trying to avoid being trapped on earth for all eternity, Lucy crosses the line between life and death and back again when she returns home. Navigating the perilous channels of the paranormal, she’s determined to find out why her life crumbled and why, despite her ghastly death, no one seems to have noticed she’s gone. But urgency on the spectral plane — in the departed person of her feisty grandmother, who is risking both their eternal lives — requires attention and Lucy realizes that you get only one chance to be spectacular in death.

This sounded like a different but fun story. Plus I've read her non-fiction stuff and really enjoyed it.

As I was reading it, I really wanted to like it ... but I found the writing and the story boring. It had the possibilities to be so much better.

I must admit that I gave up about halfway through and skipped to the end to see why Martin had kicked her out (I found the reasoning behind that lame) and if Lucy had indeed really died or was it a dream (I won't ruin it for you).

I didn't dig it :(

Book ~ "We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive" - Laurie Notaro (2005)

From Goodreads ~ She thought she’d have more time. Laurie Notaro figured she had at least a few good years left. But no - it’s happened. She has officially lost her marbles. From the kid at the pet-food store checkout line whose coif is so bizarre it makes her seethe “I’m going to kick his hair’s ass!” to the hapless Sears customer-service rep on the receiving end of her Campaign of Terror, no one is safe from Laurie’s wrath. Her cranky side seems to have eaten the rest of her inner thigh, Chub Rub and all. And the results are breathtaking. 

Her riffs on email spam (“With all of these irresistible offers served up to me on a plate, I WANT A PENIS NOW!!”), eBay (“There should be an eBay wading pool, where you can only bid on Precious Moments figurines and Avon products, that you have to make it through before jumping into the deep end”), and the perils of St. Patrick’s Day (“When I’m driving, the last thing I need is a herd of inebriates darting in and out of traffic like loaded chickens”) are the stuff of legend. And for Laurie, it’s all true.

I really enjoy her books and this one was very funny, as were the other books of hers I've read.

Book ~ "An Idiot Girl's Christmas" (2005) Laurie Notaro

From Goodreads ~ It’s the most wonderful - and most dreadful - season of the year, when boxes of truffles attack your thighs, drunken holiday revelers stay long past their welcome, and your grandmother has conniptions at the department store over the price of hand lotion. Welcome to Laurie Notaro’s Christmastime. 

In ten brand-new stories and three previously published favorites, Notaro shares the sidesplitting daily disasters of the holidays, like finding herself on emergency feminine product recon at midnight on Christmas Eve; surrendering to the inevitable Horrible Gift Parade by simply asking for holiday dish towels and giant white underpants from Sears; battling the morons in line at the Seventh Circle of Hell, otherwise known as the do-it-yourself craft store; and trying to live down her reputation as the Most Unfun Christmas Party Guest Ever, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding involving a fake overdose and emergency paramedics. 

So whether you find yourself at the Dull and Smart Party or the Raucous and Stupid Party this holiday season, you’ll always know where to find Laurie - just follow the chocolate trail over to the cheese platter. She’ll be the one dialing the cops.

Loved it!

It's a quick read ~ I read it in a day. I really enjoy her writing style ~ it's sarcastic and funny.

Book ~ "Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood" (2003) Laurie Notaro

From Goodreads ~ In "Autobiography of a Fat Bride", Laurie Notaro tries painfully to make the transition from all-night partier and bar-stool regular to mortgagee with plumbing problems and no air-conditioning. Laurie finds grown-up life just as harrowing as her reckless youth, as she meets Mr. Right, moves in, settles down, and crosses the toe-stubbing threshold of matrimony. 

From her mother's grade-school warning to avoid kids in tie-dyed shirts because their hippie parents spent their food money on drugs and art supplies; to her night-before-the-wedding panic over whether her religion is the one where you step on the glass; to her unfortunate overpreparation for the mandatory drug-screening urine test at work; to her audition as a Playboy centerfold as research for a newspaper story, "Autobiography of a Fat Bride" has the same zits-and-all candor and outrageous humor that made "Idiot Girls" an instant cult phenomenon. 

"In Autobiography of a Fat Bride", Laurie contemplates family, home improvement, and the horrible tyrannies of cosmetic saleswomen. She finds that life doesn't necessarily get any easier as you get older. But it does get funnier.

Very funny book! The chapters are short and are short rants about various things. Looking forward to reading more of her stuff.