Rating: 
Summary: Now I know I'm not the only weird one!
Review: I really do identify with Anna K. - or is it Pamela Ribon that I identify with???????? Since I am also a Pamela and live in Austin, perhaps it's only the Pam Girls in Austin who are the strange ones. Honestly, Why Girls Are Weird was a fun read. I laughed so loud that I woke up both my dog and my husband! Whether or not you're female and whether or not you're a "Pam" - you will enjoy this book about relationships with our friends, lovers, siblings, and parents. There will be at least one character that everyone can relate to and say, "Oh my, that's just exactly like someone in my life."
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!!
Review: Well, I have read the several "not so good" reviews of this book, and I can't believe it! I loved this book! I don't know if it was the online journal aspect, or the humor, or just the writing itself, but I thouroughly enjoyed this book. I loved Anna, she was so normal. She was flawed, and goofy and had smelly feet. She was loveable and sweet and funny, and innocent. I know this sounds so cliche but, I actually laughed out loud in some places and cried in others. Pamela Ribon, I think you are so talented!
Rating: 
Summary: Funny but flawed
Review: I should stop reading books marketed as "chick lit," because books that set up a sharp dichotomy between men and women and that purport to tell "this is how women are" never fail to annoy me. This book is at least upfront about where it's going: it's all right there in the title. So if you find the title off-putting, that's about all you need to know.Part of my problem with this story was that I never really cared about Anna. She struck me as unlikeable and full of herself, and I kept waiting for the story to turn to some sort of self-awareness that would lead her out of her bubble of self-absorption. But it never happens, and in fact the book seems to celebrate that self-absorption. The central love story is all based on Anna finding a guy who thinks she is the center of the universe just like she does, and that's really not the kind of love story that keeps my attention. Parts of the book are very funny, but those parts seem tacked on. The stories Anna tells don't seem to fit with the character as she is presented by the narrative, which means that the journal excerpts are jarring and out of place. It might have been interesting to explore the gap between Anna and her online persona, but that exploration only takes place in the most superficial way. The novel looks at Anna K's surface-level lies without acknowledging the fundamental disconnect between her character and the persona she presents through the entries. In all, Why Girls Are Weird is too shallow to be compelling, too disjointed in tone to be consistently funny. The book goes for the easy answers every time, so it winds up reading like a rough draft of a much better book.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing and Annoying
Review: I didn't think there could be a more self-centered chicklit protagonist than Becky of the Shopaholic series. That was before I came across Anna K. In this flat, tedious book, Anna K manages to make the world revolve around her. Her father dies? Her ex boyfriend had a girlfriend before her? Her exboyfriend gets a new girlfriend? The sun manages to rise? All about her. Perhaps the fan letters she receive aggravate this tendency in her. But after yet another situation where Anna K makes everything revolve around her, one wishes she had restricted her self-centered ramblings to the internet... no one needs to read it all in book form. Apparently much of this book is based on the author's own experiences keeping an online journal, and she even used her own journal entries to substitute for Anna K's- but juvenile self absorption doesn't translate well to a fictional character who never seems to snap out of it. I suppose if I had read the author's website it would be interesting to try to figure out how much of the dishonest, self-centered Anna K is in the author, and if any of the two dimensional people she encounters are also real and two dimensonal on the internet. But as a new reader- well, I'd recommend staying away from this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Stuff
Review: I've been a pamie fan for a couple of years. I read squishy (although I'm not sure how I came across it) and now read pamie.com. I was very interested to see how the book was in comparison. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I did skim some of the stuff I had read before, but I really loved the new stuff. I couldn't help wondering throughout the book things like, "so, were those entries part truths and part lies?", "is pamie keeping 3M in business?", "is LD really XXXX and are they together?", etc.. Happily, I found one answer in the acknowledgements. My loud "WOO HOO!" scared the ...cat and took a few years off my husband's life. That alone was worth the price of the book. I mean the good news, not that my husband will now be dying a few years before his time.
Rating:
Summary: Pamie rocks!
Review: Everyone must buy this book, which is as much a history of online journaling as it is a quick, fun read about a girl trying to find her way. Pamie truly is a pop culture goddess! Go Pamie!
Rating:
Summary: Or: Why girls are wired
Review: True life gets confused with the personality and life Anna has created for herself on an Internet diary of sorts. Fact and fiction become blurred, forcing Anna to decide who she really is and what roles she truly wants the various men in her life to play.
Easy beach read.
Rating: 
Summary: good first novel
Review: The good: Pamela Ribon does bring the funny. In several places, this book is laugh-out-loud hilarious. The bad: if you've read her website (pamie.com), you've already read many of these jokes. There's lots of new stuff...but I found myself skimming over a fair amount of material that I'd read before years earlier. My girlfriend thought the entire book was drop-dead funny from start to finish and I was painfully jealous that I couldn't have the same reaction since many of the bits were old hat to me already. the good: The author has keen observations about modern dating and the relationships (romantic or platonic) that spawn from the internet. In some ways, it could be read as a cautionary tale about who is online. Through her web-site, the main character (Anna) attracts legions of readers, including an ex of her ex-boyfriend, a moderately disturbed girl who seems obsessed with Anna and another who, infatuated with Anna's description of her old boyfriend, sets out to make him her own. Some of the funniest and best written parts of the book are the chain of flirting emails between Anna and a boy who lives far way that she's falling in love with. This might be the best romantic comedy dialogue (OK, truthfully it's correspondence, but it packs the emotional intensity of dialogue) that's been seen in years. This is where Why Girls are Weird really shines. The rhythm and dynamic of email relationships as presented here ring true and I don't think anyone has ever captured this in print quite so well. the bad:
For the first 100 pages or so, I found Anna depressed, slightly mean-spirited and rather unlikeable. The junkies in Trainspotting seem warm and compassionate by comparison to Anna in the first third of this book. I kept hoping she'd get a prescription for Zoloft or make some kind of positive changes and stop being so tediously self-absorbed. It's only after change does enter her life ( albeit tragically, through the death of her father) that Anna seems to wake up and becomes a sympathetic character who is invested in something other than her own troubles. Some of the secondary characters are jarringly two dimensional. For example, her best friend and confidant comes off as little more than a quirky homosexual stereotype who spouts catty jabs or pop-culture references every third line. Overall: it's a worthy and often clever first novel that captures the zeitgeist much like Douglas Coupland did years ago with Generation X and Microserfs.
Rating:
Summary: interesting-read for the summer!
Review: Heh well i came across this book at the campus bookstore and it wasn't even on display. However i found it expremely amusing, as opposed to what i had originally thought about its title "Why Girls are Weird." Definitely a cool combination of romance, cyber relationships, and real life dilemmas. I have to admit that i did laugh out loud in the bookstore while i took a quick look at the first few chapters and was in love with it immediately. It is light-hearted, uplifting...and restores my interest in resuming online journal writing. Plus you definitely cannot miss the part where Anna talks about seeing her ex and the "big Tittydom" entries. and her encounter with Kurt? A chick moment;).
Rating:
Summary: I Read This Book in Eight Hours
Review: I truly enjoyed reading this first time novel by Pamela Ribon. I picked this book at a local book store and was laughing at the silly situations and Anna K's ability to deal with family, relationship and "school" issues. The book didn't really relate to me or anything going on in my life but, I enjoyed the read and it was clever. I liked the little bit of romance in it too. Why Girls are Weird is a book I will recommend to many of my girlfriends who think they're crazy!
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