The Potty Mouth at the Table by Laurie Notaro

I really used to enjoy Laurie Notaro's books. They made me laugh out loud, even after I read them over and over again. I don't know if I have grown too disenfranchised in my old age, or if I have read them so many times that the humor is gone. Her last book, It Looked Different on the Model was good, but I barely laughed. I decided to try The Potty Mouth at the Table to see if it would get different results.

My basic impression of the new book is that I may not be old enough to relate to a lot of these stories. Notaro's early books were about dating and jobs, a lot of twentysomething anecdotes. Later books were about getting married and buying a house. Now, the majority of the stories are about complaining about one thing or another. Most of her complaints seem valid, or at least I wouldn't want them to happen to me. It just ends up feeling like I'm hanging out with my mom when she's in one of her moods ("Let me go into a diatribe about how I dislike Obama/how you shouldn't wear a Harry Potter t-shirt because it is the devil/how SNL celebrities got famous from snorting blow").

I feel pretty bad saying this, but it seems like Laurie Notaro is turning into her mother, frequent star of her stories. Don't get me wrong, overall the stories were entertaining. I even chuckled a couple of times. The last essay about her friend's battle with cancer was both unexpected and very sweet. Again, though, I may be a couple years too young to fully appreciate this book. Maybe I'll give it another try in five to ten years and see if I can relate better.

I received my copy of The Potty Mouth at the Table from Edelweiss, courtesy of Gallery Books. It's available for purchase now.

It Looked Different on the Model by Laurie Notaro

Laurie Notaro is one of those authors that I just love. I was introduced to her writing by my friend Kellie (Hi, Kellie!). She has essays throughout the various stages of her life, from childhood to semi-adulthood, through singledom and marriage. She is incredibly relatable, the not quite the perfect weight woman who has to deal with unwanted hair just like the rest of us.

In the latest book, It Looked Different on the Model, Notaro tells stories about those special situations that only a select few ever encounter. There is everything from getting stuck in a shirt in a dressing room to getting snubbed at a neighborhood Christmas party for lip-syncing to wondering whether to call Homeland Security on an eBay rival.

These stories are why I like Laurie Notaro books. You could imagine going out with her and hearing these stories over drinks. Even if it doesn't make it better to be a klutzy, socially awkward girl, at least reading these books lets me know I'm not the only klutzy, socially awkward girl.

Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro

Lucy's life has gone from bad to worse to worst. She returns home from an indulgent vacation to Hawaii to find all her belongings on the lawn. She even has to fight a homeless woman for her wedding dress. Her (now former) fiance, Martin, refuses to speak to her in order to clarify the situation. At work, events conspire involving a neglected deposit and a positive drug test. Long story short, Lucy gets fired. Without a job, home, or fiance, Lucy decides to start fresh and move in with her sister Alice. On the first day of her new life, Lucy is on the way to the unemployment office when she steps in front of a bus...and Lucy dies.

She ends up in a class with other Sudden Deaths, learning the finer points of haunting. The point of the classes is to teach them to navigate as a ghost so that they can fulfill their mission and move on to the next level. Lucy is assigned to the house she used to share with Martin. He now lives with Nola, a horrible woman with whom Lucy used to work. Nola has taken over Lucy's life and is afraid that Lucy will return one day and take everything away. Everyone, Martin, Nola, and her best friends Marianne and Jilly all think she is going to return because they don't actually know she's dead.

Lucy decides that her mission must be to scare Nola away. Along the way, she has to deal with her feisty grandmother, mysterious lumps on her poor aging dog, and a seance and possible trip to the dreaded white light. The book hooked me from the beginning, as I wanted to know why Martin kicked Lucy out. As it went along, I was as sad as Lucy that nobody came to her funeral, and was waiting for what seemed like forever for any of her friends to find out that she was dead.

I was a little nervous about reading this book because things related to dying give me panic attacks (See my nearly unwatched box set of "Dead Like Me" for evidence). Spooky Little Girl actually made me a little less afraid of dying. That's a pretty good thing in my book.