Customer Reviews

The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life

5 star:		(140)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

Did you ever love a book so much that as soon as you finished it
you started reading it over again? This is one of those books!
Laurie Notaro's self-deprecating humor and unique slant on life are a wonderful way to spend a few reading hours. Reading about Ms. Notaro making fun of not just herself but others including friends, neighbors, family and the occasional fellow bar patron made me laugh so hard I shook the bed and scared the cat. If you are an internet chat user of much duration you are familiar with the expression ROFLMAOSTC which is short for rolling on floor, laughing my a-- off, scaring the cat and the chapter on Laurie's mom's attempts to learn how to use the internet will in particular strike home. I found her website which has more articles but I can't wait for her next book. It won't come soon enough.

This book is great. Laurie Notoro is awesome. She has a self deprecating sense of humor (e.g., when she talks about what it's like to be the "ugly friend"--priceless!) that makes her at once both hilarious and incredibly appealing. You either relate to her (I did) or even if you don't, at the very least, you've gotta sympathize with her daily life tragedies.

This book seems to be a collection of mini-essays or past columns she's written. There's no overarching story, so if you're craving a "story," then don't read this book. DO read this book, however, if you're craving light humor in small doses. The chapters are short, their topics engaging, and the writing hilarious. You can read the whole book in a day, or you can pick it up whenever and read a chapter or two, and then put it away again for a while. Either way works. The chapters are set up to be independent little stories so you won't feel like you've lost the "feel" of the book if you leave it for a while. Chances are, though, that you'll find the chapters so amusing that you'll come back before too long. Like my review summary states, there's at least one laugh out line per chapter...often times there'll be three or four. Some of her lines are so funny, I still smile whenever I think of them...which might exlain the stupid smile I currently have my face as I type this review :-) I gave this book four stars rather than five because some of the bathroom references did tend to wear a little thin after a while, but that may just be me. It's completely consistent with the rest of her low brow humor (which I loved). But read it and decide for yourself. With or without the bathroom humor, this book is still absolutely hilarious and definitely worth a read!

I had no idea what this book was about when I bought it, but a friend recommended it and said it was pretty funny. But as soon as I started to read it, I started to think that Laurie Notaro and I were living the same life. I love her caustic sense of humor and her take on the everyday things in life that she somehow turns into hilarious little sitcoms in her short essays. Her exploits with her friends, her mom and even her Nana prove to be a nice break from the Bridget Jones era we're in, and she hands out a dose of reality--even as in one of her stories she's trapped in a bathroom stall by a transvestite, thinks her doctor has exploded her uterus during a pap smear in another one and is mistaken for a special needs person when she tries to talk with a mouth full of food in yet another. If she's an idiot girl, then I want to be member of the club, too. A great book, an easy fun read. I noticed a couple of typos, but other than that, I really enjoyed it.

I saw the cover, and I laughed. I read an excerpt online, and I laughed. I *had* to have this book. Once I got it, I kept it on my desk at work so I could read it during lunch. Eventually I had to take it home because my constant chuckling disturbed my coworker.

Laurie Notaro has a gift, and bless her heart for sharing it with us. She takes the most hideously embarrassing moments of her life and the lives of her friends and family, and publishes them for our amusement. This girl will expose any flaw for a laugh. She's the kind of hard-drinking life-of-the-party gal you would love to have as a friend, except you know you'd only wind up as fodder for her next collection of stories.

Some of my favorite moments were in the restaurant where she thinks she sees her eighth grade math teacher-the one who made her add fractions in front of the Slow Class until she cried-and offers to figure their tip to prove that she can. And when she goes to the gym and is shocked to see women roaming around the locker room with their "lentils" exposed, she asks, "Who has that much self-esteem that they could bare it all and not burst into tears?"

I hear she's finishing her next book, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, and I plan to snap it right up.

It should be clear that Idiot Girls Action-Adventure Club is not a novel, and while some of the stories are related, many are not. It's the kind of book you can pick up any time, turn to any page and be assured of disturbing your co-worker.

OH MY GOD!!! This is the funniest book for the single woman. But a warning, DO NOT read this book in public due to excessive outbursts of laughter and cackling, and definately eating or drinking while reading this book could cause you to choke. I have recently re-read this book to make me feel better about my Idiot Girl life and it worked! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this book and cannot wait to get my hands on Fat Bride.
An additional note: I sent an e-mail to Ms. Notaro telling her how much I loved the book and she sent me some wonderful stickers and a certificate making me an official member of the Idiot Girls Club. I was so excited that the stickers adorn my car windows and my certificate of membership hangs proudly next to my college diplomas in my room.
She's a REAL people and I think that's why we loved the book so much.
GO LAURIE!!!!

As I read each "chapter", I find that I can see her punchline coming a mile away. Notaro does a great job painting a picture of herself with these stories and I feel like she's sitting there next to me telling me how her visit with Nana went or how she's landed a job to get her mom off her back. But it's like you're listening to the loud girl at school. The one who wants every one to hear her funny story, but we're all kind of bored with her tales by now. Because she tries too hard and she's predictable. I can also tell by the gleam in her eye she thinks she's creating a hilarious set-up, but I know what she's going to say before she says it and. I really wanted to like this book, and I feel bad writing a negative review. Usually I just wouldn't say anything, but I'm compelled to let people know I'm underwhelmed.

It's not something I won't finish reading. But I wouldn't recommend it either. There are a couple of gems, and her subjects are all situations women in their 20s-30s can relate to (being the butch protectress of your hot friend at bars, using public restrooms, trying to get male attention, how to get drunk faster (skip dinner)) but for the most part, Notaro is trying to be really clever, but has taken a long leap past the clever line and landed just shy of annoying and blatant. If you want self-depricating humor and amusing family memoirs, spend your money on David Sedaris instead. It's not from a female perspective, but it's laugh-out-loud entertaining.

This book has appealed to everyone in their 20's and 30's I've given it to. It is laugh out loud funny, and one of the early lines that grabbed me was on p.3, "Somewhere in between being drunk yesterday and sober today, my keys disappeared." Notaro has hilarious adventures on the dating scene, the bar scene (she warns against the pitfalls of DWI's, dialing while intoxicated), dealing with her mother, finding yourself post-college, and much more. Each essay is short and can stand alone. I never wanted this book to end!

A terrific companion to this book is Notaro's 2004 book I Love Everybody (And Other Atrocious Lies). In that, Notaro writes about the process of getting Idiot Girls' published and how her newspaper career was completely unraveling during the writing of Idiot Girls. There's lots more from Notaro, and another author that Notaro fans might enjoy is Sandra Tsing Loh. Los Angelinos will especially appreciate her take on their city.

I was at a bookstore the other day when this woman approached me, handed me a copy of THE IDIOT GIRLS' ACTION-ADVENTURE CLUB, told me that every girl had to read it at some point in her life, and then walked away. I stared after her for a little while, dumbfounded, and then started thumbing through the book. It was one of the weirdest ways I've ever gotten a book, but I absolutely loved it!

Laurie Notaro makes everyday things turn into absolutely hilarious adventures - including going to the gynecologist, fast food restaurants, and using the Internet. THE IDIOT GIRLS' ACTION-ADVENTURE CLUB is an incredibly quick read, since each essay is only about five pages long, tops. Though some of the essays are just so-so, most of them are hysterical. Some of the highlights are "More Bread, Please" (where Laurie and her friend go to a restaurant and get nothing but rolls), "Make Me Laugh, Clown" (guaranteed to make any clown-hater laugh!), and "The Candy Apple Freak Show."

In short, all of my friends will be getting a copy of THE IDIOT GIRLS' ACTION-ADVENTURE CLUB for birthday/Christmas presents this year. Highly recommended.

It's a rare treasure to stumble across an author who makes me laugh out loud, but Notaro does that and more! TIGAAC and Notaro's slightly left-of-center world view was a refreshing treat!! I guarentee, I'll never look at a public restroom the same, and I'll always be sure I wear hole-less tights to the doctor's!

Like Laurie, I am part of a group of four women who are astonishing, idiotic, gorgeous, crazy and ultimately loving. This book, rather a collection of short pieces, made me laugh harder and louder than "Ya Yas" and all the other Ophrah books combined. My husband had to ask me if I was okay because I was laughing so hysterically that I wasn't able to breathe!

Laurie feels like my long lost twin and her writing style is brief, to the point, descriptive and shockingly on the mark. She admits that while her often drunken state and choice of jobs leaves something to be desired, it's better to be "that girl" than be the "popular girl" at her 10th reunion trying to mask the mess her life really is. How true is that?

Buy it and give it to someone you want to see laugh. A LOT.

And also bring along a fifth of Jack Daniels and some friends.
Take it to a book club near you. The ladies will be peeing their pants.