Hyzie reviewed We Thought You Would Be Prettier by Laurie Notaro
Review of 'We Thought You Would Be Prettier' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I thought this would be funnier.
I kept almost laughing, almost finding it funny, but it never quite made it there. Some of this might just be that it is remarkably mean humor throughout--I'm not convinced this woman likes anything in the world--but it's also all so very heavy-handed that it feels meaner than it is probably meant to feel.
Everything she complains about is turned up so far past probable that instead of getting that laughing "Yes, I think that, too!" response or even the slightly-ashamed-but-still-laughing, "Oh, that is horrible! I thought that was just me!" response, I found myself just staring blankly at the page in distaste wondering if any of this could possibly be true and hoping not.
That's not the worst reaction to have to a book, of course, but it's definitely not the reaction I am hoping for going into any kind of humorous memoir. …
I thought this would be funnier.
I kept almost laughing, almost finding it funny, but it never quite made it there. Some of this might just be that it is remarkably mean humor throughout--I'm not convinced this woman likes anything in the world--but it's also all so very heavy-handed that it feels meaner than it is probably meant to feel.
Everything she complains about is turned up so far past probable that instead of getting that laughing "Yes, I think that, too!" response or even the slightly-ashamed-but-still-laughing, "Oh, that is horrible! I thought that was just me!" response, I found myself just staring blankly at the page in distaste wondering if any of this could possibly be true and hoping not.
That's not the worst reaction to have to a book, of course, but it's definitely not the reaction I am hoping for going into any kind of humorous memoir.
I won't be picking up anything else by her and I'm not sure I could really recommend this to anyone else, either. It wasn't the most terrible humor I've ever read, but it just never quite managed to get anywhere funny, and that's almost worse.