Hunger Games and Idiot Girls Action Adventures

Are you staying up late and skipping school tomorrow for the opening of the Hunger Games? Kudos to you! That isn't my style, BUT I commend your devotion. I will see the movie some time but I imagine it won't be for a few weeks or until I can get it at Redbox. I read the books while student teaching in September of 2010. The first book was a nominee for the Young Hoosier Book Award in Indiana and as a librarian-in-training in the crossroads of America, I was compelled to read it. I remember scanning the inside cover and thinking this wasn't my vibe, but I'd give it a try. And then I loved it! When I finished student teaching, my supervising librarian gave me a gold mockingjay pin which I've been wearing all week! It was a really lovely gift.

Meanwhile, I picked up this HILARIOUS book from the library the other day. It is a collection of columns by Laurie Notaro previously published in the Arizona Republic. Notaro chronicles her misadventures as she stumbles through early adulthood. Now, I've probably read this book 3 or 4 times and, at one point, owned it. But I have gifted it to several of my lovely, lady friends and keep coming back to it over the years when I need a pick me up.

The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club (2002) is crude.
It's crass.
It will make you cringe.
It will also make you (and your boyfriend) laugh so hard you cry. I read a chapter aloud to Dave the other night, and I had trouble finishing a few sentences. Read this short excerpt where Laurie ponders which group she falls into, the "smart ones or the dumb ones":


"I was Very Dumb when my ex-boyfriend, the Super Demon Brad, broke up with me. He didn't actually break up with me, however; the Super Demon Brad simply intended to move out of the state with his gauze-wearing, cornrow-haired ex-girlfriend, Dog Girl, without telling me. I found this out when I went to his apartment one day, and he was packing all of his stuff into a piece-of-shit hippie van with purple curtains. Purple curtains! It was then that he told me that he felt his true direction in life was to follow the Grateful Dead. Dog Girl bought a van, sewed up the curtains, and he was leaving. And he did.


I was Dumb when I didn't fish out the fork I had in my purse, and I was Dumber when I didn't stab him and her in the throat with it. Instead, I thought I was being Smart by turning around and walking away without saying a word, though he kept on insisting that I should hit him. If I had the chance now, I'd rip his teeth out with my bare hands and weave them into Dog Girl's braids. Instead, I hopped on a plane the next morning to Portland, Oregon, where my runner-up Boyfriend picked me up at the aiport" (Notaro 11). 


Love that. Happy weekend!

*Thanks for the pick Barnesandnoble.com!