I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl [Paperback]

Laurie Notaro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 8, 2004

Here are more scathingly funny tales from the wild side! Laurie Notaro survived the debauched ride of her twenties and the bumpy road to matrimony. Now she’s ready to take on the thirtysomething years . . . and almost middle age has never been more hilarious.

Laurie is married, mortgaged, and now—miraculously—employed in the corporate world, discovering that bosses come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of mental stability. After maxing out her last good credit card at Banana Republic, she’s dressed for success and ready to face the jungle: surviving feral, six-foot-plus Gretchen (“Three Thousand Faces of Eve”) before battling the overbearing, overstuffed (in way-too-small pants) new mom Suzzi, who ruthlessly cancels Laurie’s newspaper column and learns that payback can be a bitch. Laurie also explores the backstabbing world of preschoolers at a Halloween party, the X-rated madness of a family trip to Disneyland, and the pressure from her QVC-addicted mother and the rest of the world to reproduce. But while losing more friends to babies than to booze, she realizes there’s a plus side: at least for a couple of months she gets to be the thinner friend.

I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) is Laurie Notaro at her deliciously quirky best. Can a woman prone to what her loved ones might term “meltdowns” (she considers them “Opportunities to Enlighten”) put a smile on her face and love everybody? Take a guess.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of Notaro's chronicles of the idiosyncrasies of her life as a 20-something (The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club) and new wife (Autobiography of a Fat Bride) will cheer the arrival of this collection of all-new material updating them on the meticulously analyzed exploits of Notaro's mid-30s. Among these navel-gazing essays are the story of how, one day when Notaro had a cold, she blew bubbles out her nose upon meeting a new boss; a repetitive whine about the specific types of spam e-mail her sister sends her; details of her passing of some kidney stones; and even quotations from a "sucky" review of one of her books from Kirkus Reviews. No event is too inconsequential for Notaro to recount at length; no relative, friend, or acquaintance too insignificant, and yet reading this entire collection front to back won't leave readers with a single memorable character or episode. Notaro is at her best when she broadens her horizons beyond the quotidian mishaps of modern life and sets herself apart from her corporate colleagues (during a brief stint as a newspaper columnist) and the baby contagion luring her friends, one by one, to the perils of motherhood (she is 30-something, after all). On the whole, however, Notaro's is a comic gift in search of a subject.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“[Notaro] may be the funniest writer in this solar system.”
—The Miami Herald

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Villard (June 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812969006
• ISBN-13: 978-0812969009
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #240,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurie Notaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, then spent the remainder of her formative years in Phoenix, AZ, where she created something of a checkered past. She is the New York Times Best-selling author of the humor memoirs The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies, We Thought You Would Be Prettier, Idiot Girls' Christmas, There's a Slight Chance I Might Be Going to Hell, The Idiot Girls and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, and Spooky Little Girl, which will be available April 13, 2001. She is a terrible typist, doesn't suffer Big Ikes very well, and lives under an assumed name in Eugene, Oregon where her neighbors believe she is writing about them, but she is not. She has a cute dog, a nice husband and misses Mexican food like a limb lost to diabetes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From one idiot girl to another, August 28, 2004

By 

S. Smith "S. Marcus (formerly S. Smith)" (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl (Paperback)

As a long-time fan of Laurie Notaro's books I was eagerly awaiting her third book. The first book was started before we got out of the bookstore parking lot-fortunately the boyfriend was driving. I laughed so hard on the way home I had to race to the bathroom immediately upon arriving. The second book was read aloud in large part but I couldn't continue half the time because I was laughing too hard. Sections of book three? I couldn't even speak I was laughing so hard and all I could do was point to the passage I wanted my boyfriend to read.

Between Mrs. Notaro's (the author's mother) attempts at the internet and passion for QVC, aunt-guilt, awful work supervisors and goofy men Laurie Notaro captures those aspects of life that we wish we could relate even a quarter as well in the telling.

Not just for idiot action-adventure girls (see book one to determine if you are a member) this book makes a fine companion piece to my L.N. set and I look forward to enlarging the collection.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and honest, June 14, 2004

By 

Meg C. Halverson (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl (Paperback)

I too am a fan of Notaro's other books and eagerly awaited the release of I Love Everybody. I have to restrain myself from reading the book in one sitting -- each piece is like its own bon bon, best appreciated alone. My favorite one thus far is an otherwise quotidian trip to Costco, in which Notaro valiantly attempts to love everybody as an effort to have better karma. In so trying, she short circuits and verbally accosts two women blathering in the all-important sample line, as well as almost runs down an innocent bystander with her "angry jazz hands". This is a well-written complement to her other books, and takes on different, more 30-something material with self-awareness and hilarity. Well worth the wait.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You Laurie, June 25, 2004

By 

Mountain Gal (Los Gatos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl (Paperback)

This third book again had my whole family laughing and shrieking in delight. Just as fresh, well written, and hilarious as Laurie's first two. Her writing style continues to mature, even as it retains the unparalleled uniqueness that is Laurie Notaro. Met her at a booksigning for this book. She is beautiful inside and out. She read some items from her fourth book - can hardly wait for it since we devoured this third one in 24 hours. You rock Laurie.