“A raw and honest glimpse of single life. The witty, poignant Vadino writes exactly how Smart Girls think.” —Entertainment Weekly
“[T]o maintain your dignity while giving into your chick lit urge . . .With seriously good writing by this McSweeney’s alum, Smart Girls is as fun and relatable as one of those silly pink books . . .” —Marie Claire
“For many years I have marveled at Diane Vadino’s ability to take the plainest little sentence and extend and twist it into something finer, funnier, revealing, and sad. Like this one from the book you are holding right now and ought to buy immediately: ‘Or maybe this is all a fabrication, a way to soften the fact that she is sashimi at Nobu and I am Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese and that this is less an illuminating metaphor than it is an accurate description of what we both ate for dinner last night.’ That’s just one of the beguiling double helixes that make up the DNA of this book: a zippy-smart, bitter-funny read with a beautiful, accomplished novel hidden in its genetic code, expressing itself like a sudden bright blue eye in a family of brown-eyed children---at the most surprising times.”
---John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
“Diane Vadino is a writer of enormous gifts, all of which are on display here, in her brilliant debut: a keen intelligence and wit, an amazing imagination, and an incisive understanding of human beings and the dilemmas---fantastical and mundane---in which they entangle themselves. She is that rarity: a young artist able to offer wisdom without pretension, inspiration without inhibition. I have no doubt this is the beginning of a long and wonderful career.”
---Nicholas Christopher, author of
The Bestiary and
A Trip to the Stars “Diane Vadino is a warm, funny, and talented young writer. In her terrific first novel she transports us to the roller-coaster ride that is single life in the city---pleasingly paced, perfectly detailed scenes replete with Diane von Furstenberg dresses, meatloaf sandwiches, a job in media, credit card debt thanks to various bridesmaid honors, and crushing heartbreak at a downtown RadioShack. Never again will I reflect on those excruciatingly embarrassing moments of obsessive young love and feel alone.”
---Jenny Minton, author of
The Early Birds “Fabulously entertaining, insightful, and touching in its telling of a young woman finding her own voice, her own path in life. Diane Vadino is an exceptional new discovery in fiction!”
---Kirsten Lobe, author of
French Trysts: Secrets of a Courtesan and the bestselling
Paris Hangover
