Rating: 
Summary: completly hilarious
Review: Purchasing "Why Girls are Weird" was a surreal experience. For the past through years I have gotten to know Pamela Ribbon, aka pamie through her work on various websites, notably pamie.com. To be able to purchase a book that she had written when I had been able to read her hilarious writings for free made me feel so happy and excited that such a talented writer was finally getting what she deserved. I found Why Girls are Weird to be pretty uneven novel. I loved all of Anna's website entries from the secret sex life of Barbie dolls, her exercise tape hallucinations, and of course the comedy gold held inside a tiny wooden hand. However the actual story of Anna K felt less interesting. I liked her email flirtation with LDobbler and I felt let down in how that plotline developed. The Tess storyline felt annoying and I found Dale the "gay best friend" to be too much of a cliché. Despite my small disappointments I still enjoyed this book and I hope pamie continues to write more stories both online and off.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book!
Review: I read this novel after finding Pamela Ribon's (Pamie's) website, hoping the story would be as funny as the website. After reading the first section about sex kitten Barbie's I was hooked. I read it all in one night - time well spent! The story's protagonist, Anna, is a modern woman. She's 25 and single, but she isn't the "chick lit" chick. Yes, she deals with jealousy when her friend gets married, but she never admits to actually wanting to get married herself. She just feels that she's supposed to want to. She deals with these feelings in a very easy to read section designed to be like a webpage. As the story weaves in and out of the internet and "real world," Anna's conflict to know herself develops and becomes something we can all identify with. Anna is a likeable character who just wants to know who she, but is so caught up in a lie that her identity has become even more skewed. I found it easy to identify with Anna and sympathize with her emotions concerning her realtionships with her friends and her father's death, which leads to a funny, yet touching scene in a gynocology office.
The story is really funny. The focus isn't so much on Anna's journal or her realtionship with Kurt, which is left ambiguous at the end, but more on who she is as a person. The author knew what she was talking about when she wrote a character like Anna, who becomes almost like a friend. The conflict isn't really serious, but it is very real because most of us know what it's like to want to be a certain way, but at the same time be unsure of how to do it. I also appreciate the sentence structure reflecting the tone of the book, like how in the sex scene the last sentence is long and breathy, like the scene it's in.
"Why Girls Are Weird" is as interesting and fun as the bright orange cover. I highly recommend this book and will be buying copies of it for Christmas gifts,
Rating:
Summary: So Funny
Review: So many chick lit books are so tired ad boring. This was fresh and alive and kept me laughing through a hard week. Rare. A friend recommended the book adn I'm soooo glad she did. Pleae write another!
Rating:
Summary: Learn her name now, because she's going to be big.
Review: Who knew that truth could really be stranger than fiction? Anna Koval begins tinkering with her webjournal as a way to kill time during the workday. The stories aren't exactly true, but what does it matter? She assumes there won't be that many people reading it.
Wrong. As the fan mail starts to pour in, Anna continues to post stories about "Anna K"'s life...stories that her fans don't realize aren't exactly the precise truth. One fan seems determined to become Anna K's best friend, and another would date Anna K in a second, if not for the wonderful (and fictitious) relationship she has with her boyfriend. When Anna finds herself falling for him, she worries that it isn't her but "Anna K" that he so adores, and is forced to fully examine the boundaries of fact, fiction and 'blog.
What can I say? I laughed, I cried. I squealed over the squishy.com references. Although the Barbie entry (check out the amazon.com snippet) and the classic Tiny Wooden Hand piece are hysterical, the book overall isn't simply diary entries strung together for laughs. There are parts that are genuinely poignant, some that may even break your heart just a bit. The writing style is so natural you'd swear you were having a conversation with your oldest friend...which, of course, is how Anna K's problems started in the first place. It also makes the book a fast read that leaves you satisfied, but still wanting more.
Now, Pamie, I gotta ask...how much of this book really happened? :) --CG
Rating:
Summary: LMAO Fun!
Review: To sum up Why Girls are Weird in one word. Hillarious! Anna K begins keeping an on-line journal documenting her real life experiences combined with fiction. She creates a huge fan base of girls who want to be the character that she has created. She finds love on line even though she speaks about her boyfriend, Ian in her journal. But, he's really her X of 1 year. Many of her journal entries kept me laughing until I had tears running down my face. "Tiny Wooden Hand" and the story about her smelly feet are hysterical. If you trade books with your girlfriends like I do, this one will definetley be a favorite!
Rating:
Summary: Very funny, unlike many in the genre...
Review: I've read dozens of the twenty/thirty-something girl books. You know, where she has a crappy job and lusts after a gay or unworthy guy, drinks to excess with her girlfriends, and possibly shops too much. Usually I skip entire paragraphs, just praying the end will come quickly so she can pay down her debt and hook up with Mr. Wonderful. I promise you, this book, while similar in plot, is legitimately funny. I barely skipped any pages! Read it on a plane or by the pool. I sincerely hope to see more from Pamela Ribon, and less from the shopaholics.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Human Heroine
Review: If you've been living in a hole the past 5 years, you probably won't know anything about Pamela Ribon (of pamie.com). Basically she's the internet sensation that became famous for her website. Ironically, so did the main character of this book, Anna Koval. I enjoyed this book. The writing was clever, and the character was familiar to me and someone with whom I could identify. Though in my opinion, Anna Koval wasn't the most admirable heroine I've come across in literature. In fact she was constantly making one mistake after the next. Sound judgement and a conscience could've gotten her out of a lot of the situations she was in... but I guess that's what makes her more human than just a character in a story. I was constantly being sidetracked by varying storylines. First there's Tess, the over-eager college student from Dallas. Then there's Smith, the girl from the school Anna works at who becomes Anna's mentee. And then of course there's Ian (c'mon girls, we've all encountered an Ian before in our lives) and the sensitive and sweet "LDobler" who woos Anna with his emails. So yes, this was a likeable book. But the plot is a steady and slow rise in action leading to her finally meeting LDobler in person and Ian finding out about her webpage (which the author hardly even spent any time on even though it was the main focus of the book), but then a steady and slow decline after that. It's kinda like an old car that, when you turn off the engine, still sputters and spurts for about 5 minutes before finally dying. Overall, if you're no Mother Theresa, you'll enjoy this book for its intelligent, witty heroine, but you may get annoyed at some of her mistakes.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny yet not sympathetic
Review: There are some genuinely amusing and touching moments, and it's nice to read a book that incorporates some common language and experiences amongst young women in my generation. At first I sympathized with the character of Anna, who is experiencing something of an identity crisis after a bad breakup and a family tragedy. However, after a while Anna becomes completely unsympathetic as she basically lies and deceives her way through most of the book. The ending was completely unbelievable--straight out of Sex and the City or some other horrible romantic comedy. Insecurity and the need for human love and contact are issues that I think most people can empathize with; the length of deception to which Anna goes, however, was not a quality I could admire at all.
Rating:
Summary: tiny wooden hand, how i love thee
Review: pamela ribon, self proclaimed wonder killer, does not disappoint in this hilarious account of an internet saga. her storytelling style utilizes an eclectic sense of humor; certain to entertain. i think i fell out of my chair when i read about the tiny wooden hand. every time i order pizza i cry a little just picturing the scene. excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: if only life were this good
Review: This is one of the best books ever written. I realise that as a "young adult" many people wouldn't consider my opinion to be valid, but if someone (change that to anyone) can get me to laugh out loud during the middle of my government class simply by thinking the words "tiny wooden hand" they've seriously got skill. One of the questions the book deals with is whether two people can fall in love over the written word. well, after reading this book it is quite possible i have fallen in love with this woman (in a non-creepy way...stop looking at me like that) and can answer that question in the affirmative. And as an aside, I let 3 girls read the first page in my english class and they've all pledged to go out and buy the book now. That, at least, should score me some brownie points with you, miss Pamela Ribon.
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