An Idiot Girl's Christmas: True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Super Kmart, Christmas Eve, Nice Tree (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like her other titles, Laurie Notaro's An Idiot Girl's Christmas is a bon bon of a book--one that is so honestly observed that, if you are at work, you will find yourself sneaking in time to read it at your desk in the middle of the day, snorting with laughter. There are few writers who can nail the particular humiliation of, say, buying a box of tampons in a crowded store while a small cadre of punks makes unfortunate jokes behind you. Or who can let loose the funny fury of wrong-headed Christmas gifts, such as her mother's peculiar affinity for food-scented candles:

Always on my list is a scrumptious delicacy from my mother's favorite Wax Candle Baked Goods store. I don't know where my mother found a wax store that specializes in baked-goods and pastry candles, but she did. Good job Mom!…It's the perfect diet food, because biting into one is like biting into Jennifer Lopez's double-decker ass at Madam Tussaud's, kind of like sinking your teeth into a thick, dense bar of Irish Spring--without the flavor.

With some new and some best-of material (the venerable Jingle Bell piece about a Barney-obsessed neighbor is here), this volume covers many a family holiday at the Notaro household, with an amusing assortment of ill-adjusted siblings, in-laws, and that grand dame of dysfunction and buzz kill, Notaro's mother. Or at least the ever-so-lightly fictionalized version of Notaro's mother, who plays the foil to Notaro's perpetually underfunded, tortured, and sweetly Machiavellian self. The palpable and universal mother-daughter tension in their relationship is best mined in the chapter, "Oh Holy Night," or "The Year I Ruined Christmas," in which the n'er do well's daughter purse is lost, found, and returned home with a tire track across it and without Notaro herself:

"I was dead?" I asked my mother eagerly, trying hard to fight the urge to jump up and down in glee. "Oh my God. I can't believe it. This is fantastic. Did you cry?"

"Well, almost," my mother confessed. "But then again there was the relief of getting the second use out of your prom dress."

In the end, wit and clever revenge on dull party guests trump the rich, thin, and conventionally pretty girls every time. Notaro's Idiot Girl's Christmas is a holiday worth celebrating. --Megan Halverson

From Publishers Weekly

Humorist Notaro (Autobiography of a Fat Bride; We Thought You'd be Prettier) takes on the standard fare of holiday horrors in this slim volume of essays, rejuvenating well-worn territory with gonzo humor and a few touches of sentiment. Notaro proffers up an ironic gift list ("Of course, I would enjoy more than anything getting some really cheap bath crystals, so I could use them when I take a shower since I don't have a bathtub") and skewers the horrors of December shopping ("a woman who had gone to high school with Mary Todd Lincoln moved up to the counter"), but also recounts some peculiar, Notaro family-specific stories, like the year the author (sort of) died and was resurrected on Christmas Eve, or the year the family ate raisin-resembling maggots with Christmas dinner. Understated emotion (tempered with sarcasm) is Notaro's secret strength, whether remembering her late grandfather's Christmas Eve walks, or taking her Nana shopping: "She's like a toddler but one who won't respond to the store PA system calling her name unless the speaker is approximately two inches from her left, good ear." Fans of David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice will find this worth a look.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Villard (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064368
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064366
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,301 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Christmas Shopping With Laurie, November 16, 2005

By	takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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As a late arrival to the Laurie Notaro fanwagon (I didn't discover her until her third book), I got off to a slow start, finding her humor too confrontational at times, and too self-abasing at other times. Still, I found myself hunting down her previous books, and before I knew what had hit me, I was laughing and reading bits out loud to savor them.

My favorite Notaro pieces all seem to involve shopping. In An Idiot Girl's Christmas, the standout essays are Deck the Mall, in which Laurie takes her Nana Christmas shopping, and Have Yourself a Kmart Little Christmas, in which Laurie finds herself in a crowded Super Kmart just before closing time on Christmas Eve.

In another chapter, The Most Unfun Christmas Party Hostess Ever, we get an intriguing glimpse of Laurie's husband (although we still don't know his name). As they get their house ready for a Christmas party, unnamed husband asks "Do you think if I put my new Emily Dickinson biography on the coffee table that it will spur conversation?" Apparently, in his circle of friends, this is a distinct possibility. Laurie knows her friends, on the other hand, will "debate whether or not I know that I married a gay man."

An Idiot Girl's Christmas is a pretty short book, 142 pages in a hardcover the size of a trade paperback, but it's priced accordingly, and you'll definitely get your money's worth in laughs.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lively, fun, and of course...Self decimating, November 3, 2005

By	Teresa M. Zwemer "bella" (Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In true Laurie style, this book will make you feel better about your worst Christmas memory. Because inevitably, hers is worse. Way worse.

A really quick read (I picked it up after work yesterday...took it to the gym...and was finished before dinner) but fun and entertaining throughout. There is no filler in this short, but sweet book. Just lots of Laurie's unique humor encapsulated in bite sized Christmas stories of true horror. My favorite I think being the Super K-mart at midnight on Christmas Eve story.

If you've read and liked ANY of her previous work...this book should be on your Christmas list...hopefully positioned above the puffy Christmas dish towels and nylon underwear large enough to cover a sports car in a downpour.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, wonderful, great read, November 14, 2005

By	T. Frye (New York) - See all my reviews

Notaro keeps getting better with age--I loved this book, read it in a night despite my best efforts to ration myself to a chapter a night--and am now re-reading it for a second time. I always consider Laurie's books multiple-use, anyway, I've read all of her books two and three times. I was happy to see some old favorites in An Idiot Girl's Christmas, but happier to see the new material, particularly the closing chapter, which was a departure from her usual stuff and works marvelously and had me laughing outloud until I couldn't breathe. Always hilarious, always relateable (I too, am a clear light Christmas tree person), always truthfull, I will advise any readers of this book to follow the rules of the previous books: don't read in public unless you want people to doubt your sanity, and don't imbibe or eat unless you want to become a Diet Pepsi fountain (laughing and liquid intake to do not mix). This is a great fifth installment in my Notaro collection, and I will treasure it for every holiday season to come, and it has also provided me with something to give to every one of my girlfriends (especially the ones who are impossible to buy for). Thanks, Laurie!