Book Review: Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro

By Amanda Linsmeier

I’ve enjoyed Laurie Notaro’s non-fiction works before, like The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Guide. When I read that book years ago, I laughed—hard. I didn’t know she also wrote novels. I was recently perusing the bookstore when a brilliant chartreuse cover caught my eye. The title? Spooky Little Girl. The author? Laurie Notaro, who I didn’t even know wrote novels. The novel tells the story of Lucy Fisher, a young woman who goes on a Hawaiian vacation with her two friends. When she returns home, she’s shocked to discover all her belongings on the lawn, her fiancé unwilling to talk to her, and the locks on their home changed. To top it off, she’s recently been fired from her job. What’s a girl to do? She stores her stuff at her friend’s house and moves in with her sister and nephew, exploring possibilities in the new life before her. Unfortunately for Lucy, she is hit by a bus in the process.

When Lucy wakes up, she is in a bright room, surrounded by beds and sleeping people. She is confused and doesn’t realize she is dead until she is brought up to date by Ruby, the tough and fun “Ghost School” instructor. Lucy can’t believe this is happening to her and resists learning to become a ghost. She is hurt and bewildered when no one but her sister and nephew show up to her funeral. She doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve this. Just when she thinks things can’t get worse, Lucy is plopped in the middle of her old home, living with Martin and his reality-TV-show-loving girlfriend, stuck having to haunt them for reasons she’s unsure of. She has to see Martin interact with a woman she despises with only her dog to see her or keep her company. Then, the ghosts lay another surprise on her: she won’t have to haunt alone. Her dead grandmother is going to keep her company. What follows is a series of funny events, brought on many times by Lucy’s hilarious grandma. Throw in a couple of ghost hunters and pranks and you have a very fun, light-hearted novel.

Spooky Little Girl explores an interesting concept and contains a number of funny moments. While Notaro shines brightest in her non-fiction work, her novels are certainly worth reading. The tender moments of Spooky Little Girl are the best in the book, though they appear less frequently than I would like. I also very much liked the last chapter, which tied the story together nicely and offered a truly happy ending, one of my absolute favorites among the books I’ve read.