True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood
By Annette Cinelli

Laurie Notaro’s Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood is a fun, quick read that is a great book for the bride-to-be who loves hilarious short stories. Laurie is also the author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, and in her second book the self-proclaimed idiot girl finds the elusive “nice guy,” has an STD scare, gets engaged, and plans a wedding. These are only a few of the stories Laurie shares with us in this collection of 54 personal essays.

The first story, “It’s Not You, It’s Me,” tells of a break-up where Laurie’s ex leaves her for his ex-girlfriend, aka “Dog Girl.” The rest of the story is a run down of Laurie’s love life from her 5th grade crush to the guy who was drunk when she picked him up for their date to the boyfriend who got his ex-girlfriend pregnant (Laurie retaliated by dating his best friend, “…who then realized that girls really grossed him out.”). The story will have you laughing and reminiscing about your ex-boyfriends, wishing you could see the guys who broke your heart in as humorous a light as Laurie does her exes.

In “The Good Guy,” Laurie dates a guy she can’t quite figure out ~ he calls when he says he will, holds her hand in public, tells her he loves her when drunk but doesn’t take it back the next day. When she asks her friends for advice they don’t know what to tell her. Then her best friend Jamie muses, “I’ve heard there was one out there…I always took it as a tall tale, an urban legend, an archetype of mythical proportions.” It turns out that Laurie has found “The Good Guy.” She then freaks out about how to keep a guy that would only be more valuable “…if he were albino.”

In “Dog Girl Bites Back,” Laurie discovers her ex-boyfriend has gonorrhea and worries that she may have passed it on to her “good guy” boyfriend. When she tells him, he responds simply, “If I had to catch sex cooties, I’m glad they were your sex cooties.” Then he proposes to her, romantically declaring, “If we can make it through this, a late electricity bill will be nothing. Starvation will be a laughing matter. Eviction will be a piece of cake. I mean, YOU GAVE ME VD!!!! Things don’t get much stickier then this.”

The next section of the book is the part about-to-be brides will appreciate the most. Starting with “The Fat Bride is Not a Happy Magic Marker,” Laurie gets tested for gonorrhea and deals with the doctor telling her the last thing a newly engaged woman wants to hear, that she is overweight. She complains at work to a skinny co-worker who tries to comfort her with the words of wisdom from a chubby girl in her class who said, “I’d rather be a happy Magic Marker than a toothpick with boogers on it.” Needless to say Laurie does not appreciate this “help.”

The wedding tales continue with “Hare of the Dog,” where she meets the future in-laws, “Dreading the Wedding,” where she breaks the news of her upcoming nuptials to her parents, and “Naked with a Stranger,” where her mother takes her dress shopping. In “The Suck of Bridal G-Force,” Laurie talks about how easy it is to get drawn in to the “bridal black hole.” I truly agree with her theory that “The publishers [of bridal magazines] supply retailers with thirty different covers each month,” and when the one on the shelves is sold out it is replaced with the exact same magazine with a different cover.

Other hysterical wedding stories include “Dead Bride Walking” and “If You Get Divorced Within a Year, You Owe Your Father $35.78 a Dinner Times Two Hundred: Words of Wisdom on My Wedding Day.” The latter is about the actual wedding and includes 747s flying overhead, a rude videographer, and Laurie’s moving dance with her grandfather.

In “Dead Bride Walking,” it is merely days before Laurie’s wedding and dozens of thoughts rush through her head. There are some you would expect from any bride: “Have all of the bridesmaids gotten their dresses altered?” “Will people who didn’t RSVP show up anyway?” Then there are ones that only someone as comical and clever as Laurie could come up with: “Do I need a dowry?” “What happens if he dies within the next eleven days ~ do I have to send back all the gifts?” “Will people I hate try to crash the reception, just to piss me off?” This one is a great story and probably one of my favorites in the book.

The other stories deal with life after marriage ~ which in Laurie’s case includes house repairs, training a new puppy, taking care of her new nephew, and turning thirty-four. All of the stories will have you laughing out loud as Laurie Notaro takes everyday life and events and weaves them into funny, well-written stories. Whether you’re single, in a relationship, or have already walked down the aisle, swing by the bookstore today and pick up a copy of Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood.