DOES THIS BEACH MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

A mother and daughter team up for another volume of anecdotal stories.

There are countless readers for whom a book is akin to a truffle, a small, sweet, delicate treat lacking in anything particularly sustaining. Often, it’s as much about having others know you’re enjoying it as it is about actually enjoying it. Here, bestselling novelist Scottoline and her daughter Serritella (Have a Nice Guilt Trip, 2014, etc.), both Sunday columnists for the Philadelphia Inquirer, deliver another truffle of a book. It is about nothing but enjoyment, a nudge-nudge, wink-wink narrative about womanhood in all of its messy, wonderful glory (well, “all” from the viewpoint of two well-to-do white women). It is the sixth such book from this mother-and-daughter team, ostensibly in the tradition of humorists like Erma Bombeck. Scottoline and Serritella have yet to reach Bombeck’s level of popularity, but it isn’t for lack of effort—or perhaps it is: many of the sentences (even paragraphs) consist of only a few words: “We get it.” “We rock!” “Like Mensa.” One essay notes that, in disagreements with the power company, they always win: “Because they have the power.” Elsewhere, “I have a gangrene thumb” describes a comical difficulty with planting “a zillion” perennials. Other examples: “She’s like Oprah if Oprah could twerk.” “Woot woot!” “LOL.” “I’m in love. / With my Fitbit. / I’m smitten, which makes me Smitbit. / Or maybe Fitbitten. / Either way, I’m into it….By the way, my dogs do not have Fitbits. / They don’t Fitbite.” The topics are mostly the same as in their previous books, many similar to those Bombeck covered far more dynamically in her many bestsellers. There’s another, more relevant, definition of a truffle: “a strong-smelling underground fungus that resembles an irregular, rough-skinned potato.”

A silly, featherweight confection that will only appeal to the authors’ many fans.