Sherwood Smith's Reviews > Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions

Copy received from NetGalley.

This collection of blog riffs, anecdotes, and mini-essays was put together by the mother and daughter duo, Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Serritelli. It ranges over the entire spectrum of life, specifically female life, from the tribulations of dating for twenty-somethings to menopausal issues, including care for, and losing, a beloved matriarch.

Most of the riffs are mildly humorous (and some of them try a little too hard to be funny) but the ones I responded to the strongest were the glimpses of their lives, written simply yet conveying a compassionate view of the quirks and quandaries of life, and especially of other people. Even the one about identity theft--when one of them discovered that a group of women con artists had stolen her social security number, real name, and address to open a host of credit cards before going on a spending spree--was not angrily bitter.

Best of all was the short riff called “Love Without Rough Edges,” a beautifully poignant visit carried by gently evocative details. But there is such a range here that readers are sure to respond to some aspect of their adventures, whether it's being discovered by workmen staring through the window while one is relaxing at home without a bra to pets, dieting, food, friendship, and the warp and weft of everyday life.

There is no plot. Halfway through reading this I thought, this is the perfect summer gift for people who say they don't read. The book can be dipped into on any page, the essays take at most ten minutes to read, usually less, and most of them leave one with a sense of the authors' generous view of the world, and their determination to live lives of good will.