My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Ralph staunchly and compassionately defended his brothers: ‘They’re only aggressive because they’ve got such über-small penises.’

I was learning about ancient Greece in history class. Greek mythology was a very large component of this because my teacher had a passion for it. His name was Zero Kosta … poor bastard… this man must have truly felt like he was worth nothing from the get-go. Suddenly, my name didn’t seem so bad. I think Mr Kosta had first- hand knowledge of ancient times because he looked like he was raised from the crypt. He was cadaverous.

In our family, Joe had a special aptitude for farting. And he was renowned for it in the Jewish community. There were whispers: Psst, did you hear what Joe Roth did during the visiting dignitary’s speech? What chutzpah! Still, never heard anything like it before! and, That’s Ruth Roth. Her father’s the one who farts in public. This earned him the nickname ‘Joe Blow’ (clever, but also dumb because he was anything but your average Joe).

If the eyes are the window to the soul … what if someone’s cross-eyed? Is that like looking through a bay window?

When I was seven, Joe backed up against my freshly ironed school shirt, which was hanging on the linen closet door. He deposited a fart in the shirt pocket. ‘For safekeeping,’ he’d said. The teachers didn’t think it was too funny that day when I told them I had a fart in my pocket.

My Review:

Paula Houseman is found treasure. My face kept a near-constant smirk and my reading of this vibrant and cleverly amusing story was frequently and forcefully interrupted, as I was laughing so hard I could not see. I adored it start to finish and had 5 pages of favorite quotes. The book was packed with a full cast of peculiarly eccentric, neurotic, and quirky characters who had starring roles in Ruth’s memories of her most calamitous and psyche-scarring life events. The storylines and writing were highly entertaining and I was hard pressed to put my Kindle down. Her father’s legendary flatulence issues alone caused several bouts of giggle-snorting.   Ms. Houseman is my new favorite author and I will fangirl her hard. I am thrilled to have two more of her masterworks on my Kindle, but I cannot imagine how she could possibly top the humorous storytelling of this one. And I have doubled my newly established Aussie Vocab List with the new entries of furphies – which are erroneous stories; fossick – to rummage or search; stoush – a commotion or dust-up; and Strine – the English language as spoken by Australians as well as their accent.