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

Laurie Notaro (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 2, 2002

“I’ve changed a bit since high school. Back then I said no to using and selling drugs. I washed on a normal basis and still had good credit.”

Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends—and that’s before she even puts on a bra.

For the past ten years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences. She writes about a world of hourly-wage jobs that require absolutely no skills, a mother who hands down judgments more forcefully than anyone seated on the Supreme Court, horrific high school reunions, and hangovers that leave her surprised that she woke up in the first place.

The misadventures of Laurie and her fellow Idiot Girls (“too cool to be in the Smart Group”) unfold in a world that everyone will recognize but no one has ever described so hilariously. She delivers the goods: life as we all know it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of columns, originally written for the Arizona Republic, details Notaro's daring exploits and comical mishaps as she matures from wild teenager to disheveled adult. Her vignettes are humorous if unoriginal. "The Useless Black Bra and the Stinkin'-drunk Twelve-step Program" is a classic drinking story, complete with the lost friend who is eventually found in a neighbor's front yard wearing only a bra. This hard-drinking, chain-smoking approach to partying inevitably leads to some punishing hangovers; in one extreme case, Notaro is mistaken for a homeless person while en route to jury duty in "Going Courtin'." Not surprisingly, disregard for her appearance diminishes her chances of fulfilling her mother's dream and bringing home from the trial a "balding, sexually repressed twenty-seven-year-old attorney strangled in a Perry Ellis necktie." Notaro's QVC-addicted mother is predictably in opposition to and embarrassed by her daughter's bad-girl antics. In "Waking Angela Up," Notaro compares herself to Janeane Garofalo, and there indeed are clear similarities in the blunt self-deprecation that fuels both women's humor. Notaro, however, lacks the biting originality of her more famous counterpart. In "This Is a Public Service Announcement," Notaro rails against public restroom users, including "the hoverer" and "the talker." Her existing fans will agree with these sentiments, while new readers might simply shrug, thinking, "Who doesn't hate those characters?"
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Notaro, who writes a weekly humor column for the Arizona Republic, has collected some of those columns into her first book. Notaro is "everywoman" not quite pretty enough, not the popular one, not good at holding a job or a man. She tells her stories about public bathrooms and high school reunions with a wicked edge that keeps us laughing at her and, of course, at ourselves. On the dreaded reunion: " `It's time for your high school reunion!' the letter shrieked, and then went on to inform me that 546 of the people I hated most in the world were coming together at some lah-de-dah resort for the entire weekend to talk about the good old days." In "Suckers," she recalls the gym class where the girls got "the talk." "It was one of the darkest days of my life when that nurse, Mrs. Shimmer, pulled out a maxi pad that measured the width and depth of a mattress and showed us how to use it." Ahhh...the good old days. This is a great, funny read that women will love. Recommended for most humor collections. Kathy Ingels Helmond, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1st edition (July 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375760911
• ISBN-13: 978-0375760914
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (205 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,875 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Funniest Book I've Ever Read! March 3, 2003

By MLIS2012

Format:Paperback

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.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars One laugh out line per chapter...GUARANTEED! August 20, 2001

By T. Quach

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars 2.5 Stars to be exact. But I don't round up. January 4, 2007

By Amber

Format:Paperback

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.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A very pleasant surprise July 29, 2001

By "riotgal"

Format:Paperback

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you think the cover's funny, wait 'til you read the book! November 25, 2002

By Linda

Format:Paperback

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.