Book review: It’s Not That I’m Bitter …

I love to laugh. As a matter of fact, people at work say they know where to find me by following the sound of my laughter.

I love, therefore, people who make me laugh, and one of the great things about reviewing books is finding new funny authors.

E, author of Shmirshky, is very funny.

Barbara Barth, author of The Unfaithful Widow, is very funny.

And now I have found my new funny author, Gina Barreca, with her book It’s Not That I’m Bitter … Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World.

Reading It’s Not That I’m Bitter … is like watching a stand up comedy routine, without being subjected to the inevitable annoying heckler in the audience. Unless you count my Siamese if I happen to be reading during his treat time.

The great thing about stand up comics is that they are simply stating facts about everyday life. They just happen to point out what nobody else is willing to, or they put a fantastic spin on the facts.

Gina Barreca has this down to a science when it comes to the daily life of the us over forty gals.

Take bathing suit shopping. Her description of women attempting to purchase bathing suits is brilliant, but I really laughed out loud at this part:

No man – no straight man in Western civilization, that is – has ever tried on a bathing suit. Men wear the bathing suit their mothers bought them when they were seventeen until there’s a hole where they put their keys, and then they walk into some cheap store, find the sale bin, find a suit, hold it up, say, “it’s blue; it’ll fit,” and then they leave.

It’s true! Name me a man — straight man in Western civilization — that tries on a bathing suit before buying it!

It’s Not That I’m Bitter … is full of obvious, yet funny, facts like this. From bathing suit shopping, to gift giving, to feminism, Gina covers it all.

But, just as I was getting really comfortable and thinking It’s Not That I’m Bitter is a laugh a minute, I find a few poignant moments. Like what it is to love a man who is not available to freely love you back.

Then … right back to laughter.

And like any good comedian, Gina’s stories are really to make us stop and think about issues. As she explains at the being of the book, her ‘role is to notice patterns of foolishness in our collective human behaviour and to chronicle them.’

I say she did an excellent good job.

More information!

Make sure you come back on July 15, 2010, to enter to win a copy of Gina Barreca’s It’s Not That I’m Bitter …

You can find out more about Gina and her book at Untamed & Unabashed

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