"We Thought You Would Be Prettier", subtitled "Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive" is a collection of comedy writings by Laurie Notaro, whose first book was "The Idiot Girl's Action Adventure Club". It was published in 2005, and consists of about two dozen vignettes, from a few pages to a dozen pages long, dealing with the author's life, some dealing with her life as an author, and others dealing with general "relatable humor" about topics like shopping and dining.
I bought this book at a library sale and took it along a long train trip, thinking it would be good light reading. And indeed, it was, although in places it became a more serious autobiography. The style is light and breezy, but distinctive enough to have its own comedic touch. That is perhaps part of the joke-- Laurie Notaro kind of swerves between relatable "everywoman" humor and presenting herself as a somewhat bitter outsider, or, as the subtitle would have it "the dorkiest girl alive". The writing style is in the mode of such classic newspaper comedy columnists as Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck or Lewis Grizzard.
And here is one thing that jumped out at me about this book: how long ago 2005 was. I noticed that in the first chapter, when she talks about going on a book tour when the terror alert system was at a heightened level, and it made me think back to how quaint that seems now. After two years of contentious mask mandates, the terror alerts of the turn of the century seem like historical curiousities. It is not just that that makes this book seem dates in places. At times, Notaro writes about being an outsider and punk rocker, but many of her stories seem to come out of the Cathy comic strip: lots of stories of weight gain, shopping for shoes, and arguing with a doltish husband. I don't think it would be possible, in 2022, for a woman to write about self-image problems without putting a bit more sociopolitical spin on the stories. Gay or transgender people, while not treated as "perverted", still seem to be places in the role of a supportive best friend. When minorities occur, they are vaguely comedic figures. And in her serious moments, she talks about things that wouldn't quite be relatable for young people today: coming from a strict Italian Catholic family and being the first generation raised in the suburbs. The comedic style also seems old-fashioned now. I don't like twitter or memes, but the type of abbreviated, absurdist and oblique humor that has come around with over a dozen years of Twitter and assorted memes has changed how we process humor, and the "newspaper column" style humor seems somewhat clumsy to me now.
I still felt this book was funny. But it did make me realize that 2005 is now the past.
All of this analysis is my opinion after finishing the book, and wanting to think of something thoughtful to say about it. While reading it, I was mostly engaged and entertained by it.