Spooky Little Girl

What can you say about a story that doesn't really start going until the main character dies? A whole lot of fun! I fell in love with Lucy and all her friends at Ghost School but I also couldn't wait for her to start her "haunting assignment" because I knew that the answers as to why her life fell apart had to be found there. And the author reveals those answers like any good mystery writer would-slowly, a little bit at a time, until the dramatic climax. Oh, I can't tell you how much self control it took for me to not skip ahead because I just couldn't read fast enough! But in the end, the wait was definitely worth it. Oh, and don't forget to read the "Author's Note" in the back of the book to meet the real Lucy Fisher. I like to think that she would be happy with the way her death turned out.

I was excited when I saw Laurie Notaro had written a novel, as I had read her "Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club" last year and laughed myself silly. Lucy Fisher is the main character and as the book opens she is returning from a vacation with some girlfriends as a celebration before she gets married to her boyfriend, Martin. The vacation does not go as planned, so she is rather anxious to be back home with Martin and her dog, Tulip. This is where the "%^(" really hits the fan though, because as the cab draws near she sees all of her belongings out on the lawn, the locks are changed, Martin won't call her back and Tulip is looked inside. She has nothing to do but put her stuff in her truck and bring it to her friend's house until she can find out what happened. Just as she thinks it couldn't get worse she is fired from her job, for testing positive for cocaine, which in her memory she has not done since her tube top could fill itself out and keep it's shap unassisted. What could be worse? Well, getting hit by a bus when you loan your vehicle to your sister and have to take the bus to the unemployment department. Nope, I kid you not, dead as a doornail. Lucy wakes up to learn she has to go back to earth and finish her "assignment" before she is allowed to go to "The State", which is where all the dead people really want to be. Before she gets there though she will meet others who have had an unexpected demise and will learn the ropes from her teacher, Ruby on the basics of spooking. I had to fill my husband in on the plot since there were several times that I had to read out loud some funny excerpt from the book. The book was light, fun and what I expected. If you like a good, funny read with a lovable heroine give this one a go. I enjoyed getting out of my life for a while and spending it with Lucy. Hopefully, there will be more novels in Laurie Notaro's writing career, as I will definitely seek them out.

I've known a lot of would-be writers who have wondered what the magic formula is that will make their novel a best-seller, instead of one that languishes on the back shelves of the local book store. There are a few things that you can do that will make your novel stand out, and one of the most important is to give the readers something that they haven't seen before - something that is a different than most of the stories that you've heard before. After all, if you look at some of the more popular authors to come about recently, such as Stephanie Meyers, the common thread that they share is that they look at things differently. Sparkling vampires ring a bell? That is exactly what Laurie Notaro does in her novel Spooky Little Girl. The story starts out normal enough - Lucy, who is a few months away from getting married, takes one last vacation with her friends. When she returns all of her belongings are out on the lawn and she has to wrestle a woman for her wedding dress, and her fiance won't talk to her or explain why he threw her stuff out on the lawn. She loses her job and heads to her down-on-her-luck sister's house to live. To complete the string of the worst luck anyone has ever had in the world, she walks out onto the street only to wind up waking up to discover that she's no longer living. She's dead. And to make matters even worse, she's not only dead, she's in ghost school! Instead of the classic "someone dies, they haunt someone else or they go to heaven to watch their relatives", Notaro brings us the idea of ghost school, where the ghosts have to learn how to do ghostly haunting tricks. She answers questions like why there is occasionally a cold spot in your home, and why we see orbs. With her wonderful imagination, she looks at things with a different light, with the story swiftly moving the entire time. At first you feel extremely sorry for Lucy - but you also see her as someone that you can relate to. After all, who hasn't had a string of bad luck that has made you wonder about your very existence? This novel could definitely be classified as "chick-lit", but that doesn't mean that it's all fluff and no substance. Throughout the story, and the giggles, you learn a few little life lessons. And it is those lessons and the unique way of looking at the afterlife that truly makes Spooky Little Girl a quick and fun read. I am definitely looking forward to seeing if Notaro can continue to look at the world in a different way in her next novel!

Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro What would you do if you just came home from a trip with the girls celebrating your bachelorette party to find everything you own except your dog, out on the front lawn and your fiancé not answering your phone calls? And then what would you do if when you went back to work only to find out you've been accused of embezzling and then you test positive for a drug you've not used since huge shoulder pads for women were in vogue? Well if your like most people you run to those you love and love you back and that just what Lucy Fisher does; she runs to her sisters. Unfortunately for Lucy, before she could reclaim her dog or find out what went wrong with her fiancé Martin, she gets hit by a bus and ends up in of all places- the "nearly hereafter". She then has to learn haunting 101 to be able to "complete her assignment on earth. And if she is able to fix whatever it is that needs fixing she will be able to make her way to her afterlife or The State. This is reminiscent of the 1991 movie "Defending Your Life" with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep, yet still retains a fresh quality since Laurie has so many other ideas on what the hereafter holds and how ghosts will act while in it. I really liked this book since it had all the elements of what I look for in a "beach read" - an unusual and fresh story, characters that are both lovable and eccentric, some you can you can identify with and some that you just want to hate (with a passion). And let's not forget the most important element of a funny, light-hearted contemporary novel - the Happily Ever After- and I do mean EVER after! I really love everything Laurie writes, so when this was offered by the Vine program for me to review I jumped at the chance. Normally Laurie writes autobiography and only has one other fiction title under her belt. "There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble", with "Spooky Little Girl" as her second fiction I think she has made it clear that she is a force to be reckoned with in the light fiction/chick lit genres.

I love Laurie Notaro. I mean it. I've been a fan of hers ever since I picked up We Thought You Would Be Prettier years ago. She's gifted at writing about her life. I have to admit though... I was a little leery of whether or not she'd be able to write a fictional book. (Spoiler: She is more than able.) The book follows Lucy, a young woman who is literally having the worst luck ever. First she's thrown out of her house by her fiance without any explanation. Then she's fired from her job in front of the coworker who hates her with a passion. Finally when things couldn't seem to get any worse, Lucy is hit by a bus. When she comes to, Lucy discovers that she's died & that in order to go to "The State", she has to do a successful haunting. If she fails, she'll be stuck haunting forever. That wouldn't be so bad, except that she's supposed to haunt her ex-fiancee's house... who has since taken up with her work nemesis. I really enjoyed this book, but at times I couldn't help but feel like it needed a little something to make it a little meatier. This will be a fantastic book to read on the beach or as a leisure read, but I prefer when she writes about herself. It's still a really wonderful book & I'm already recommending it to people at work to read. The most important thing though was that at the end, I didn't really want to stop reading. I wanted to know "what happened next" to everyone at the end of the book. I also loved the ending. I can't say specifically why because that would be a spoiler, but I liked the way it ended for Lucy. If you love Laurie Notaro's stuff, you'll like this book. If you've never read her stuff before, then you are in for a treat. This is an excellent book & you have a lot of wonderful reading ahead of you when you pick up her other works.