Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

I feel a bit disloyal writing this because I first became a fan of Pamela Ribon (Pamie) back when TelevisionWithoutPity was still Mighty Big TV. Her Wonder Killer entry is one that I’ve pointed people to over and over because she describes this particular personality tic so much better than I ever could. And of course, she helped start and continues to run the Dewey Donation System.

These are all certainly among my favorite things.

So I went in thinking that I’d absolutely love this book. But unfortunately… I don’t.

Why Girls Are Weird is about Anna Koval, a pretty typical gal who finds fame and acceptance by starting a web journal. There are certainly a lot of laugh out loud insights into life and the web journal entries, which seem to be adaptations from Pamie‘s actual blog posts, are just gold. They remind me why I like to go over there so much.

It’s the real life sections of the book that pale, at least at the beginning of the book, in comparison. The writing isn’t as crisp and stumbles over itself sometimes. I know that’s how real life is, but for a novel, I’m thinking that it still needs to be up to par with the “writer-ly” pieces.

I also found it difficult to get into the burgeoning online romance and friendship that develop through initial fan mail. When a rather serious family situation takes the fore though, I thought that section really shined.

I’m not through trying though. The library also has Why Moms Are Weird, and I’m going to check it out.

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