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kellyherself's review against another edition
4.0
Synopsis: Lucy Fisher comes home from a Hawaiian vacation to find her life turned completely upside down. Her fiancee has thrown all of her possessions out of the house they share, including her wedding dress. Then, Lucy finds out she has lost her job. Not knowing what to do with herself after such a shocking turn of events, Lucy heads to her sister's house to regroup.
And as the old saying goes, just when you think things can't get any worse, they do. Lucy is suddenly dead and trying to learn to navigate an entirely new situation: the other side. As it turns out for Lucy, the other side involves going back to school. School to learn to spook, that is. Lucy learns that she will be sent back to Earth, to "live" among her family and old friends until she completes her mission. What the mission is, she doesn't know. But Lucy does know that she has to complete the mission, without breaking any of the spooking rules, or risk being trapped on Earth forever.
Review: I have long been a fan of Laurie Notaro's hysterical memoirs and was excited when her first fiction novel, There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble, was released. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the book. I found the novel to be difficult. That being said, I am extremely pleased with Notaro's second fiction novel, because Spooky Little Girl was fabulous.
I'm such a fan of Magical Realism that I could almost not not love this novel. I found Lucy to be so endearing. She was a completely likeable, sympathetic character. The plot of the novel was interesting and very funny. I laughed aloud many times while reading it. Notaro's brilliance with Spooky Little Girl is making Lucy's reactions to being dead, being in spook school, and then being thrust back among the living, mirror how the reader images they would feel in the same situation.
And if you need another reason to check out this novel, it was an extremely quick read, because I couldn't put it down.
And as the old saying goes, just when you think things can't get any worse, they do. Lucy is suddenly dead and trying to learn to navigate an entirely new situation: the other side. As it turns out for Lucy, the other side involves going back to school. School to learn to spook, that is. Lucy learns that she will be sent back to Earth, to "live" among her family and old friends until she completes her mission. What the mission is, she doesn't know. But Lucy does know that she has to complete the mission, without breaking any of the spooking rules, or risk being trapped on Earth forever.
Review: I have long been a fan of Laurie Notaro's hysterical memoirs and was excited when her first fiction novel, There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble, was released. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the book. I found the novel to be difficult. That being said, I am extremely pleased with Notaro's second fiction novel, because Spooky Little Girl was fabulous.
I'm such a fan of Magical Realism that I could almost not not love this novel. I found Lucy to be so endearing. She was a completely likeable, sympathetic character. The plot of the novel was interesting and very funny. I laughed aloud many times while reading it. Notaro's brilliance with Spooky Little Girl is making Lucy's reactions to being dead, being in spook school, and then being thrust back among the living, mirror how the reader images they would feel in the same situation.
And if you need another reason to check out this novel, it was an extremely quick read, because I couldn't put it down.
akagingerk's review
3.0
A fun but not amazing read. I liked Lucy much better after she kicked it -- for the first couple chapters she comes across as super self-involved and hard to connect to. (I suspect that's partly a side effect of the author's attempt to hold certain facts back to give the book some suspense.) Lucy's grandmother is hilarious, and the book truly hits its stride once she enters the story. The author's excellent grasp of the ridiculous (and the recommendations of the book club) makes me want to go read some of her nonfiction.
Bonus?The plot doesn't go where I expect. Which I'm counting as a spoiler, because there's nothing like someone telling me there's a plot twist to make me spot it far in advance. And this isn't a twist so much as an unusual direction for one of my 'fluff' reading choices. For some reason, I'd thought she would be jumping back into her life at the end -- a misreading/misremembering of the cover copy maybe -- but the actual ending is much more satisfying.
One thing I found slightly odd was the change in POV from the third person limited at the start of the novel to multiple third person viewpoints at end. The POV is extremely tight at the beginning -- everything is filtered through Lucy's eyes and thoughts. But towards the end other viewpoints start slipping in -- her sister, her former fiancee, her friends... In fact, the resolution relies heavily on having those outsider views available, otherwise much of the climax flat-out wouldn't make sense. While I found the switch that far into the book to be slightly disconcerting, I can't imagine telling the story any other way. So be ready for that?
Bonus?
One thing I found slightly odd was the change in POV from the third person limited at the start of the novel to multiple third person viewpoints at end. The POV is extremely tight at the beginning -- everything is filtered through Lucy's eyes and thoughts. But towards the end other viewpoints start slipping in -- her sister, her former fiancee, her friends... In fact, the resolution relies heavily on having those outsider views available, otherwise much of the climax flat-out wouldn't make sense. While I found the switch that far into the book to be slightly disconcerting, I can't imagine telling the story any other way. So be ready for that?
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