I think people should ignore every blurb that's on the cover of this book. It is emphatically not the funniest novel I've ever read, or even close -- Augusten Burroughs and I have different ideas of what "funny" means, maybe? -- but I nonetheless thought it was very good.

I also don't know why people call this a dark comedy, either. There's a particular person's death foreshadowed throughout, but that death in and of itself isn't much of a joke. I actually was a little bit glad of the death; there was an element of justice to it that was pretty clear all along.

The narrator is a crabby spinster librarian, somehow not quite cliche, and hugely enjoyable to read. I'm not sure everyone would embrace her as completely as I did, but I responded to her sarcasm, and to her abiding love of books, immediately.