If you’ve been following me for awhile, at least through last year, you know that the first book in this series, basically this author’s debut novel, Flirtasaurus, was my favorite book last year. So as you can guess, I have been so excited for this one! And let me tell you, it did NOT disappoint!

While it didn’t start off with as crazy hilarious of a meet-cute as Flirtasaurus did, when we got to that point, oh my gosh, I was dying laughing. It did start out with some funny suggestions by a real “Italian” on how some things were being pronounced wrong, like minestrone is min-es-tron. (As an Italian I can tell you that is not correct.) But then we got into Mabel describing what someone looked like, in her own thoughts, and I have to say, I am probably that bad at my descriptions. Something I have to work on when I’m writing my own stories. However that amused me because it is so me.

Another thing I loved was that we got some time with Calliope from Flirtasaurus, and some fun with her opinions on names and how they are not sexy. Because, Bert, yeah, not sexy. And the crazy part is that the guy’s full name was Robert. Who chooses Bert from Robert? And then when Wallace, or Wally as Mabel called him, kept “accidentally” calling him Ernie, gah!

So much about Mabel’s awkwardness is so much me. And the positivity thing. I’m not as bad as her, but still, I know I probably come off like that, when I’m not complaining myself. When she would all of a sudden be yelling? I seriously was laughing so hard throughout this book that at one point, one of my dogs who was sitting on my lap as I read, turned around and gave me a look like she wondered what was wrong with me. I wish I had been able to capture her expression with my camera because even thinking about that now gets me laughing again.

So this will probably go down as one of my top books of 2021, and the little tidbit that there will be one more book after this, Sharkbait I think it is called, totally made my night when I finished! Now I have to share some of the parts that made me stop reading because I was laughing so hard. First of all when Calliope talked about the age of 33 being the “Jesus year” because that is what age Jesus was when he all of a sudden became the messiah and did a bunch of miracles, etc. Calliope’s man, Ralph, is one of the girl’s brother, so she called herself a “brotherf***er”. And some quotes (might not be word for word perfect to save time and space):

“I guess my therapist is rubbing off on me.” “You should never let your therapist rub one off on you!”

“Is that a tear?” “No way! It’s just eye sweat!”

“May I have a word with you?” “Which one?” – this one I want to start using myself!

Review first published on Lisa Loves Literature.