First published 2009
Lisa Scottoline opens her life to readers through seventy short pieces originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Each column captures moments from daily existence with sharp humor and unflinching honesty. Scottoline writes about emergency room visits while braless, the wisdom found in Betty and Veronica comics, and why interrupting deserves recognition as an art form. She explores the male anatomy with irreverent curiosity, imagines real estate listings as pornography, and declares war on Spanx undergarments. The novelist who typically uses 100,000 words to tell a story compresses her observations into 700-word snapshots. Her Italian heritage surfaces in her inability to say hello briefly. These vignettes reveal the comedy hidden in mundane experiences, from the eternal quest for properly fitting jeans to the complexities of family relationships and pet ownership. Scottoline transforms ordinary frustrations into shared laughter.
Genres: humor, contemporary, memoir, non-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, humor
Setting: Philadelphia
Period: 21st-century
304 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press