Hi-Larious

So, I haven't been posting many book reviews this year, but I found a book that was noteworthy, and I'm putting it here as a YOU MUST READ THIS. Especially, if you want to laugh and feel somewhat embarrassed by your own lack of coolness as a teen.

So, I signed up for GoodReads.com and it is an amazing site--totally addicting and I like to comb through my friends' booklists and see what they've got posted. Recently, I came across a posting for David Nadelberg's Mortified: Real Words, Real People, Real Pathetic. I knew just from the title, I had to have it. I put it on my PBS list and I was 40th in line to get it free. This weekend, with Judy on down, we were going to Borders to take advantage of her 33% discount and I decided if they had it, I was getting it. By some stroke of luck, I got it.

David Nadelberg started collecting people's diary entries from when they were teens and turned them into a cult-favorite stage show. I've never seen it, never even heard of it. But apparently, he decided to compile some of these things into a book. The book spans the 70's, 80's, and 90's and shows the lives of teens from their eyes, everything from "My mom's a bitch" to "I want Jimmy to fall madly in love with me" to "Duran Duran is awesome"... Well, you get the idea. The typical teen angst.

I had a feeling this book was going to be funny, but I don't think I quite grasped how funny it would be. I read the introducion to Jacalyn while we were in the Borders cafe and the two of us were cracking up. When even the introduction is awesome, you know it's going to be a great book.

That night, I was literally laying in bed having trouble catching my breath, tears streaming down my face. I was trying to read some of the passages to Michael, but I was literally screaming with laughter as I read Lori Fowler's accounts of being a maverick cotton judge in the FFA. The next night, I lost it over "The Know It All", a girl who at age 12 thought she knew so much she'd be a prophet for the ages and wrote a little handbook to remind her of her own brilliance.

Not only was it funny, it was a little poignant. There were parts of it that really reminded me of what I'd written in my own diaries and journals as a teen, all of which I recently read after bringing them home from my dad's house. (And yes, I was mortified to read them!)

So of course, when Borders emailed me a 40% off coupon on Monday, you know I went out and got Mortified 2: Love is a Battlefield. I've only started reading it, but I'm sure it's going to be amazing.

Check these books out!! Oh yeah, and quit snooping in my diary!