I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl

Written by Laurie Notaro

Narrated by Hillary Huber

Laurie Notaro is married, mortgaged, and now-miraculously-employed in the corporate world, discovering that bosses come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of mental stability. After maxing out her last good credit card at Banana Republic, she's dressed for success and ready to face the jungle: surviving feral, six-foot-plus Gretchen ("The Three Thousand Faces of Eve") before battling the overbearing, overstuffed (in way-too-small pants) new mom Suzi, who ruthlessly cancels Laurie's newspaper column and learns that payback can be a bitch. Laurie also explores the backstabbing world of preschoolers at a Halloween party, the X-rated madness of a family trip to Disneyland, and the pressure from her QVC-addicted mother and the rest of the world to reproduce. But while losing more friends to babies than to booze, she realizes there's a plus side: for at least a couple of months, she gets to be the thinner friend.

I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) is Notaro at her deliciously quirky best. Can a woman prone to what her loved ones might term "meltdowns" (she considers them "Opportunities to Enlighten") put a smile on her face and love everybody? Take a guess.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452672670

Laurie Notaro

Laurie Notaro is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the humor memoirs The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, a finalist for the Thurber Prize, and Housebroken, among others. She is also the author of three works of fiction, including the historical novel Crossing the Horizon. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she then spent the remainder of her formative years in Phoenix, Arizona, where she created something of a checkered past. Laurie now resides in Eugene, Oregon, has a cute dog and a nice husband, and misses Mexican food like it was her youth.

Reviews for I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies)

[jasonbrownpdx · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

[review may not be suitable for all readers:]

this is a book review.. seriously…

this is a topic i never thought i would write about. i have never been one for reading on the toilet. i am an in and out man. run in, drop a deuce, flush, wash hands, run away before the smell melts your face off. there is a reason that people i am friends with have always referred to trips to the gas chamber as “fighting a brown demon” or a “holy war”. who ever comes out alive, is obviously in the good graces of their creator and not yet ready for the after life.

unfortunately, i have been sick for a couple days. i spent my whole weekend coughing, fighting off headaches, nausea, dizziness, cold sweats, hot sweats, acid stomach, sniffles, congestion, and poor judgment on movies to watch while ill… well, with the weekend gone and my work being direly short on people, i went into the office today, sick or not, i had to be there. loaded up on tylenol cold and sinus, my numb fingers and cloudy brain plowed through the day. nothing made much sense but i was a warm body where a warm body was needed. tylenol is my friend.. i know it is likely cancerous or will cause me to grow a third testicle on my forehead but hey, it did the trick when i needed it to.

fast forward to getting home after work.

it is now after 10pm. i have not been coughing for a while and i feel phenomenally better… GURGLE… what the hell was that… GURGLE….. ooooh, shit.. literally. tylenol is not my friend.. i think it is the cause of my adverse butt reaction. i hate you tylenol

into the bathroom i go.. i have no idea how long i am going to be in there. every time i think i will be able to escape the horror of it i find that i must stay. as i sat there preparing to cry and give up all hope on a life with a sense of smell, i realize that someone has left a book on the back of the toilet. i noticed it a couple days ago and it caught me off guard. i know people with stacks of magazines, books, even book shelves, let alone those little “bathroom readers”. never has something like this been in MY bathroom to stave off crying, i reached back and picked it up.

Laurie Notaro’s I Love Everybody (and other atrocious lies), True tales of a loud mouthed girl. henceforth to be referred to as ILE.

laurie notaro

Laurie, she saved me from wallowing in the fear of my face twisting and dripping into a raiders of the lost ark “i am defying god and paying for it” panic attack. i opened her book and started picking through the pages. i have read it before, about a month and a half ago. i even meant to post something up here about it as it was truly hilarious and made me laugh out loud on the bus a couple times (to the dismay of all those around me).

ILE was a great read. no wonder it caught my attention again in times of great need. Laurie has written many other books, but this one was handed to me and saved me from having to buy it. of course, having loved it, not buying her books is out of the question.. that was a double not positive.

ILE is a collection of stories starting with her getting back into the work force after writing nothing but painfully dry descriptions of kitchen appliances. it details her trials she goes through when she decides to pay the homeless drunk guy to rip out trees from her yard and her inability to get rid of him. you get to learn about babies. you get to learn about crappy emails her sister sends her all the time, bosses who pull guns on you, kidney stones, addiction to pain meds, and blowing snot bubbles out of her nose

my favorite favorite favorite part of the book was the chapter about when she began to play”The Sims” on her computer. she is warned by a sales person to never ever play the game. when she buys it anyway, she is warned never ever to make a digital spouse to go with herself in the game. whew, she straight up ignores the advice and the 11 pages that follow detail all the glory of destroying a husbands self image, wasting hours of her life, fires, pee, fire, pee, job loss, fire, hatred, rotting food, crying, scolding, and death. all in a digital realm and not likely in that order.

so i put down the book when my bowels subsided from their desire to leave my liver and lungs in the toilet bowl, and i ran from the bathroom (hand washing would wait for the kitchen sink tonight). lightning did not pass through my eye sockets and other organs.. all in all my organs are safe.

cool huh?

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Notaro's collection of essays this time centers around her various frustrations at living in a world populated by doofuses, dolts, and demanders of various ages, sizes, and social standing. Meanwhile, she's awaiting the publication of her first book, trying to hang on to her job amid corporate shuffling, and fending off inquiries about her reproductive status.

[chrisweir-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Funny book with tales from the life of Laurie Notaro. Tales of a friend who takes a swim in a Japanese ornamental garden. Jerry the neighborhood tweeker and handyman. Her Nana who believes that all the stories on Lifetime channel are real, which leads to an emergency race to her house. A hilarious trip to Disneyland where she finds a number of things wrong with the happiest place on earth. One where I found myself laughing out loud where she was playing the Sims game and started a fie in the kitchen.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Notaro was a humor columnist at The Arizona Republic for ten years before her column suddenly disappeared from the paper, something I'd always put down to the popularity of her first book. Nope, all the sordid details are in this book of essays, published in 2004. Here are the hilarious essays about the management changes at work and the cast of idiots that cost Notaro her job, the story of wearing a pair of favorite pants for so long that they exploded into fibers while on vacation, the drunken tree trimmer who began knocking on her door at all hours to ask for money and cigarettes, and an essay regarding something that still happens in Phoenix, where the City sends out threatening letters to an entire street about their yards. These subjects may not seem a likely source of humor, but Notaro has a remarkable ability to see the worst in everything.

[sandra_berglund-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book is not funny. The humor is forced, and the story lines are unoriginal. For example, she is not the first (although she claims to be) to rant about the fact that Disney characters don't wear pants. Also, the author's attitude makes me dislike her as a person. She doesn't come off as light-hearted and sacastic. She's mean spirited, annoying, and pathetic. Too harsh?

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am happy to say that I enjoyed this book much more than the first. Several chapters had me giggle, a couple made me laugh until I cried, and one nearly made me wet my pants. Notaro seems to have grown up a bit, and so has her humor. Her descriptive language makes the ridiculous situations vivid and even interesting.

[salgalruns · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

4.5 Stars (goodreads-please allow us half star postings!!!). I contemplated higher, because I literally sat like a crazed person laughing to myself out loud while reading this over the last day. Please take it to heart that you should not be drinking anything other than water for fear of having it shoot out of your mouth while laughing, possibly staining some very nice summer clothes. Not that I'm speaking from experience here, but...

The book is designed as a series of experiences that I can only hope are embellished. If they are not, my sympathies to the author as she has had so many comically bad things happen to her, it's really quite sad. Didn't stop me from laughing, but I do have a slight twinge of guilt for some guffaws that might have escaped from my mouth. You cheer for her, you want to help her get back at the charming people she works with, or even Winnie the Pooh, for being such a poo.

It's a totally fast read, and is a lighthearted laughable story. I will most definitely be picking up her other books and can't wait to read them as well. :)

[pidgeon92_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Several of these stories were very, very funny.

[periwinklejane_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fun, light humorous essays, but with a bit too much snark and whining for someone who's been on the NY Times best seller list. C'mon.

[ginap411 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I must have a hard time with comedic memoirs because I have yet to find one that consistently makes me laugh out loud (with perhaps Chelsea Handler's books being exceptions). I actually didn't even finish this book because I really disliked her writing style. She's probably a funny lady in person, but the humor just didn't translate to paper for me.

[bookwormteri · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The more I read of the book, the more I liked it. A quarter of the way through, I was pretty meh about it, but felt mildly amused, so decided to keep reading. Once finished, I realized that I really enjoyed it. I almost peed myself reading about Laurie and friend at the Japanese garden...entertaining.

[susiesharp_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Laurie has now gotten married I think I need to go back and find Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood I’m guessing this is the one I missed but I will definitely rectify that!I loved the chapter about her mother’s trip to Italy that one made me laugh so hard! This book is fun because Laurie is married now but is still not interested in having kids and the chapters that deal with that are very funny! The Disneyland chapter will give you a good guffaw! And the trip to Mexico was too funny, her poor husband!Laurie’s books are so fun and I highly recommend them to anyone with sense of humor!4 Stars

[hbsweet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“I know people are led to believe via television that the life of a columnist (e.g. Carrie Bradshaw) is a glamorous one filled with fancy clothes, fabulous parties, and Apple laptops. “That, I’m afraid, is a lie.”“…You see, in journalism school, the day comes when you have to make a choice: broadcast journalism or print journalism. The pretty people choose broadcast; the hominids choose print.…if a pretty talking head tried to cross the line to the print group, we would have to beat her with notepads, tape recorders and keyboards, and called her ‘Barbie’ until it was time to eat her…”“So I guess I am mean, I can admit that much, and because of my potential to find Opportunities to Enlighten, and the frequency with which I often stick my hands into the air, extend all my fingers, and shake my wrists in what my best friend Jamie has aptly described as the Angry Jazz Hands move, I knew at that moment I couldn’t get a job working with people.”“Prison would never work out: I’d get picked last for all the gangs, I’d never get included in escape plans, it would be just like high school.”Truly, truly, Laurie Notaro is one of my all-time favorite writers: from “Not My Lifetime,” where Laurie’s beloved (and hilarious) Nana loses her favorite TV channel (“But really, there was no talking to Nana about upgrading her viewing choices to something palatable, or at least something that didn’t have a ‘Chinese menu title,’ one choice from Group A (Deadly, Dangerous, or Betrayed) teamed with one choice from Group B (Lies, Kisses, or Love) for a name.”) to “Swimming with the Fishes, her excursion to the Japanese Tea Garden with her friend Jamie, only to have Jamie fail to “Use Caution” (“Then the Angry Little Mermaid took her shoe off and emptied out a whole Thirstbuster’s worth of water.”)—she made me laugh like hell, and wish I knew her in real life. Rock on, Idiot Girl: you do rule the world.

[katerbugg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this third installment of Laurie Notaro's generally hilarious memoirs, her dry humor strikes a funny bone once again. Throughout the book we learn of the intimate details of Laurie's home, friend, and marital life. I found the book to be much organized than the first two style-wise. Although still finding the book to be hilarious, I felt that it lacked the brutal honesty of the first two. Notaro seems to be more desperate of remaining young and terrified of growing old, yet she still maintains her trademark hilariously bitter personality throughout the book. From this latest installment, Notaro instills belief that we are young; no matter how gray hairs we grow, or numbers that go up on the scale.

[tap_aparecium · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I will always love the title of this. Laurie Notaro is truly hilarious and actually one of the writers that got me back into reading again. Nothing deep here but this book is filled with pure hilarity.

[melydia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of autobiographical essays from one of the funnier writers I've come across. Though in places too acerbic to be truly uproarious, once you get into Notaro's groove her rants and tangents range are pretty darn funny. There were times I laughed aloud - no mean feat, considering I was reading this on an exercise bike. Her descriptions of the tampon flying out of her purse, the spontaneously exploding pants, and her attempts to "love everybody" while at CostCo on a weekend were particularly memorable. A short book, but good for a quick laugh.

[icedream_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first Notaro book I picked up and it's the first time I have ever read a book that had me snorting with laughter in the first 10 pages. I passed it on to my aunt who passed it on to her friend and I never got the book back. We all loved it, we called each other to read passages that would get us roaring with laughter all over again. I would highly recommend this book to readers with a quirky, sarcastic sense of humor.

[twothumbsdown · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I gave the first book of hers I read, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, a pretty bad review. I had bought this one at the same time and almost didn't read it since I really didn't like the other one, but this one was a lot better and it actually made me laugh. I still wouldn't say that Laurie Notaro is the funniest person ever, but she made me laugh this time.

[litelady4ajh · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Funny stories about the author's life. I can relate to some of her frustrations about dealing with "idiot people".

[toast.x2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

[review may not be suitable for all readers:]

this is a book review.. seriously…

this is a topic i never thought i would write about. i have never been one for reading on the toilet. i am an in and out man. run in, drop a deuce, flush, wash hands, run away before the smell melts your face off. there is a reason that people i am friends with have always referred to trips to the gas chamber as “fighting a brown demon” or a “holy war”. who ever comes out alive, is obviously in the good graces of their creator and not yet ready for the after life.

unfortunately, i have been sick for a couple days. i spent my whole weekend coughing, fighting off headaches, nausea, dizziness, cold sweats, hot sweats, acid stomach, sniffles, congestion, and poor judgment on movies to watch while ill… well, with the weekend gone and my work being direly short on people, i went into the office today, sick or not, i had to be there. loaded up on tylenol cold and sinus, my numb fingers and cloudy brain plowed through the day. nothing made much sense but i was a warm body where a warm body was needed. tylenol is my friend.. i know it is likely cancerous or will cause me to grow a third testicle on my forehead but hey, it did the trick when i needed it to.

fast forward to getting home after work.

it is now after 10pm. i have not been coughing for a while and i feel phenomenally better… GURGLE… what the hell was that… GURGLE….. ooooh, shit.. literally. tylenol is not my friend.. i think it is the cause of my adverse butt reaction. i hate you tylenol

into the bathroom i go.. i have no idea how long i am going to be in there. every time i think i will be able to escape the horror of it i find that i must stay. as i sat there preparing to cry and give up all hope on a life with a sense of smell, i realize that someone has left a book on the back of the toilet. i noticed it a couple days ago and it caught me off guard. i know people with stacks of magazines, books, even book shelves, let alone those little “bathroom readers”. never has something like this been in MY bathroom to stave off crying, i reached back and picked it up.

Laurie Notaro’s I Love Everybody (and other atrocious lies), True tales of a loud mouthed girl. henceforth to be referred to as ILE.

laurie notaro

Laurie, she saved me from wallowing in the fear of my face twisting and dripping into a raiders of the lost ark “i am defying god and paying for it” panic attack. i opened her book and started picking through the pages. i have read it before, about a month and a half ago. i even meant to post something up here about it as it was truly hilarious and made me laugh out loud on the bus a couple times (to the dismay of all those around me).

ILE was a great read. no wonder it caught my attention again in times of great need. Laurie has written many other books, but this one was handed to me and saved me from having to buy it. of course, having loved it, not buying her books is out of the question.. that was a double not positive.

ILE is a collection of stories starting with her getting back into the work force after writing nothing but painfully dry descriptions of kitchen appliances. it details her trials she goes through when she decides to pay the homeless drunk guy to rip out trees from her yard and her inability to get rid of him. you get to learn about babies. you get to learn about crappy emails her sister sends her all the time, bosses who pull guns on you, kidney stones, addiction to pain meds, and blowing snot bubbles out of her nose

my favorite favorite favorite part of the book was the chapter about when she began to play”The Sims” on her computer. she is warned by a sales person to never ever play the game. when she buys it anyway, she is warned never ever to make a digital spouse to go with herself in the game. whew, she straight up ignores the advice and the 11 pages that follow detail all the glory of destroying a husbands self image, wasting hours of her life, fires, pee, fire, pee, job loss, fire, hatred, rotting food, crying, scolding, and death. all in a digital realm and not likely in that order.

so i put down the book when my bowels subsided from their desire to leave my liver and lungs in the toilet bowl, and i ran from the bathroom (hand washing would wait for the kitchen sink tonight). lightning did not pass through my eye sockets and other organs.. all in all my organs are safe.

cool huh?

[cindyloumn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought she was very funny at times. But they felt more like short stories, vs a book. Sometimes it felt like she was trying too hard to be funny. But when sh talked about being mean, or what she'd like to do at times, it was hilarious!!!12/25/06

[brendajanefrank · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You will fall on the floor laughing!

[anikill_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not quite finished with this book yet, but I'm loving it. This girl has sass. And its not a sass you feel like punching in the face either, its a sass you've gotta just love and giggle with. Its like she really gets it. She understands that some people aren't too smart, and you just need to laugh at them, or else you'll lose your mind and go nuts. Love it, highly recommend it. Can't wait to read her other stuff.

[lyssrose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another fabulous collection of essays from Laurie Notaro, the role model of selfish, sarcastic women everywhere.