Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Review: There's a slight chance I may be going to hell



Review: There’s a (slight) chance I might be going to hell – Laurie Notaro

Book Description: The first novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club is a rollicking tale of small-town peculiarity, dark secrets, and one extraordinary beauty pageant.

When her husband is offered a post at a small university, Maye is only too happy to pack up and leave the relentless Phoenix heat for the lush green quietude of Spaulding, Washington. While she loves the odd little town, there is one thing she didn’t anticipate: just how heartbreaking it would be leaving her friends behind. And when you’re a childless thirtysomething freelance writer who works at home, making new friends can be quite a challenge. After a series of false starts nearly gets her exiled from town, Maye decides that her last chance to connect with her new neighbors is to enter the annual Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant, a kooky but dead-serious local tradition open to contestants of all ages and genders. Aided by a deranged former pageant queen with one eyebrow, Maye doesn’t just make a splash, she uncovers a sinister mystery that has haunted the town for decades.

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

About the author: Laurie Notaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. She packed her bags for Eugene, Oregon, once she realized that since she was past thirty, her mother could no longer report her as a teenage runaway. She is the author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody, We Thought You Would Be Prettier, An Idiot Girl’s Christmas, and the novel There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell.

My Thoughts: I have been a fan of Laurie Notaro since I read The Idiot Girl’s Action Adventure Club. Her writing is laugh out loud funny. There’s a slight chance I might be going to hell is her first fiction novel and to say that it goes along with the humor of her autobiographies, is saying it lightly. To me, when I first read this book, I immediately thought of the current town I live in and said ‘how in the world did she capture Eugene so easily and she’s from Arizona.’ Some may not notice the differences between Oregon and other states. But living in Oregon after living on the East Coast, I have seen and heard about a lot of the ‘circumstances’ and similar events from the book that Maye dealt with. From the recycling day to the sewer pipe queen event, I have seen it all in Oregon. I immediately passed this book around to some of my ‘local’ friends and they also thought what I thought. Laurie Notaro was able to create a character in this book that seems like an outsider in a town because she ‘thinks’ she’s normal…LOL. This book is definitely one to read especially for the laughs.
I GIVE THIS:
DISCLAIMER: I was in no way compensated to review this book. These are my opinions of a book in which I purchased on my own.



6 comments:

  1. Very nice review! I have this book on my TBR shelf. Now--the real question--do you seriously live in Eugene, OR????? I grew up in Portland, OR and I now live right across the river in Vancouver, WA. Could we possibly be neighbors??

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  2. Well I live in Springfield now but when I first moved here to Oregon I did live in Eugene. But since the towns are so close I say Eugene for ease :-)

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  3. Oh, the book is really funny especially when you think about this area and the author actually now lives in Eugene.

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  4. What a small world! I have her newest book, Spooky Little Girl but I haven't read it yet....

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  5. LOL How funny Julie - I live in Eugene too!

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  6. Julie, I read Spooky Little Girl and I liked that one as well.

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