Queen Klutz by Marti Lawrence is a lulu.com title surveying the many unfortunate instances in Mrs. Lawrence's life (it's amazing she has survived) and her humorous take on them.
This book is taken from the perspective of a mother and most of the "series of unfortunate events" occur around her home and to her person...as she tells us she is "a very clumsy woman."
Unfortunately, there are several clumsy aspects to the writing and production of the book as well. While this collection of personal anecdotes has humorous potential, particularly if you find yourself in similar situations, the delivery is lacking somewhat:
- Mrs. Lawrence has a peculiar penchant for laying down the narrative in the same blocky style you might find for directions on a cake box: Example: "She contacts husband, checks on family members, performs dozens of other helpful tasks, assures me things will be fine, gets me a glass of water, finds cure for cancer. (not really, but she is certainly diligent enough to.)--Now at first I thought, this is just a humorous little thing for this story--it works when used very sparingly. However, Mrs. Lawrence repeats this same recipe for disasterous prose throughout the book in nearly every story again and again. It gets old very quickly folks.
- The interior design of the book is very choppy water: exaggerated spaces between paragraphs and sentences--maybe I've just not read enough Lewis Grizzard?
- The cover for this book is very badly done--a personal characature of the author, done badly. It just screams in agony: UNPROFESSIONAL!! I hate to keep beating the proverbial dead horse on book covers folks, but this is a very key issue with online markets, not to physical bookstores. People rarely go past a terrible cover to investigate the content.
If you are a housewife or working soccer-mom you might find some gems to amuse in this collection, but you'll have to be very forgiving on the writing and format to enjoy them.
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