We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive

by Laurie Notaro and Hillary Huber

Book Overview

She thought she'd have more time. Laurie Notaro figured she had at least a few good years left. But no-it's happened. She has officially lost her marbles. From the kid at the pet-food store checkout... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812969014
• ISBN13: 9780812969016
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Villard Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Just not funny

I have never thrown a book away, guess what? I just threw this one away. I wouldn't even donate this lousy book. The humor is not humorous, not even going to say childish because children can be funny - this book can't be. I don't even know what the premise of this book actually is and the lead character is so one dimensional and uninteresting, no, really, trite ranting does not make one interesting. Jokes about telemarketers and being fat and blah, blah, blah. Do not waste your time, keep browsing and find something truly clever and worth reading.

I snarfed Gatorade while reading this book

Never in my life have a read a book that makes me laugh out loud like this. My husband has banned Laurie Notaro books from my bedside table, because my cackling tends to keep him awake. "We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive" is the first Laurie Notaro book I read. And then I promptly went out and bought every other book she had written. Notaro's books are the edgy girls' hilarious answer to the "Shopaholic" series or other chick-lit fluff out there. So, if you're more likely to be seen tripping on your ravelled pants hem and falling down the front steps of a bar (but saving your beer!), than you are to be seen strutting down 5th Ave. in Prada, then this is the book for you. Laurie Notaro, you rock!! Idiot Girls unite!

Another winner, watch Laurie try to mature

For fans of The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club, this book opens with Notaro recounting the days of her cross-country tour to support her breakout hit of a first novel. While Idiot Girls' centered on a single, drinking, avoiding-growing-up life, in this look Notaro has definitely aged, as she writes about marriage, being an aunt, buying clothes for the middle-aged body, using eBay, and working out at the YMCA. There are several very moving "This Is Your Life" segments that reveal Notaro's roots with humor and wit. In "Moving Day," Notaro relives all her memories of her grandparents' house and what it was like to interact with them. In "Last Night at Long Wong's," she attends the closing party for the bar in which many of her Idiot Girls' adventures took place. She had't been there in years, and she was too tired/responsible to go to the all-night after-party, something she would have been the life of in her Idiot Girls' days. For readers who have grown with Notaro, from being a reckless Idiot Girl to becoming the Dorkiest Girl Alice, this will be a surefire hit.

Funnier Than Ever

The wonderful thing about Laurie Notaro is that she taps into the 30 something year old strapped into a totally inappropriate but oh so much fun pink prom dress. She's bitter, she's funny, she's not perfect and willing to share just how much NOT perfect she is with the rest of us losers so we don't feel quite so bad. I really like her writing. It's frothy, somewhat shallow, and sometimes so mean (and usually about herself!) that I cringe, but that is what makes it so good.

"A Free Sample of Kickbutt Pie"

I had mixed feelings about the first book I read by Laurie Notaro, Autobiography of a Fat Bride. I thought she relied too much on making herself to be the fat, ugly, stupid girl to get laughs, and that it was almost a throwback to the Phyllis Diller-type comediennes of the Sixties. But it was funny enough that I wanted to read more. In We Thought You Would Be Prettier, Notaro still is the often the butt of her own jokes, but somehow now she seems more Roseanne than Phyllis Diller. Even her bio at the end of the book is good for a laugh. My favorites were the story of the flippy-haired guy at the supermarket and her description of her day at driving school. I was also pleased to find her website (LaurieNotaro dot com) where there was a very funny piece about her misadventures with the supermarket self-check-out machine. There you can also read the story of how her first book was rejected seventy times before she finally self-published and then she was almost immediately contacted by an agent who sold that book and her unpublished second book. I love that story. And she has a new book coming out in November!

Best Notaro collection yet!

I've read all of Laurie Notaro's books and this one was quite simply the greatest collection of hilarious stories yet. She had me laughing to the point of convulsions. She is the soul sister for countless women out there - and not to be missed for anyone with a sense of dry sense of humor that borders on sick. Laurie, you are my hero.