Unabrow

January 12, 2015
New York Observer columnist LaMarche (who blogs as the Sassy Curmudgeon) offers a combo of quirky humor and rich fantasy life throughout this collection of 20 essays, which are interspersed with hilarious graphs, cartoons, and line drawings (the last of which range from “A Guide to Public Restroom Usage for Classy Ladies” to “Shit-List Bingo”). Originally conceived as a list of life lessons for her future children, the author warns that the collection is not intended for an actual child unless he is capable of “using the F word at least three ways in a sentence.” Childhood (and in particular, her near-obsession with her unibrow, tweezed at age 12), adolescence, and the trials and tribulations of young adulthood (shopping, driving, sexuality) are explored along with such random topics as how to clean a stairway while listening to “Stairway to Heaven,” and how to construct a Tootsie Roll log cabin. A child of the ’80s born of hippie parents, LaMarche is now a new mother in her 30s; her observations on parenting and marriage are especially humorous, including a brief index of common parenting mistakes, in which she shoots down both sides of such questions as whether to breastfeed, co-sleep, use disposable diapers, etc. LaMarche is entertaining and fresh; readers will want to savor this sassy, offbeat commentary.