This narrator is truly and amazingly unreliable. After I finished it, I really wanted to go back and read it over from the beginning, but I'll probably wait and read some other things first.

It definitely reminded me of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I think the big difference is that in those books, the viewpoint characters are trustworthy and good, whereas in The Basic Eight the viewpoint character is not at all trustworthy. Finding out in what ways she distorts things is part of the fun, so I won't reveal anything.

Some interesting oddities about this book. Every so often there is a list of "vocabulary" words and some discussion questions throughout the book. Also, all references to real world people like Oprah Winfrey are disguised with thin pseudonyms, for example Winnie Moprah. This is quite amusing, but I can't figure out if this is supposed to be the fictional narrator, afraid of getting sued, or Daniel Handler, afraid of getting sued (or more likely mock afraid of getting sued).

Some of them I just can't figure out, like "Doctor Tert" or "Darling Mud" (a rock band). The all-knowing Google found me someone with the same question, but no answer.

For some reason when I first looked at the cover I though those were pool balls, not croquet. That combined with the phrase "eight ball" had me thinking that this book would somehow be about pool. But it's not, just in case you were wondering.

Daniel Handler is perhaps better known as Lemony Snicket, author of the absolutely wonderful series A Series of Unfortunate Events. This book, while not a children's book, definitely has a similar style, especially in its whimsical naming, for example the "American Association Against Alarming Absinthe Abuse".

The book actually reminds me a bit of my favorite author Gene Wolfe's work, because it has an unreliable narrator. The book is the journal of Flannery Culp, who is being tried for murder. The journal itself cover events around the time of the murder, but it starts with Culp in jail on trial, and she continually interjects her present self into the past time frame of the journal.

It's also not clear if the events recorded in the journal were recorded accurately. In fact, she states several times that something she just wrote about didn't actually happen, but then later in the journal will refer to the same event as if it did happen.

I find all of this terribly entertaining. I like a book that makes you actually pay attention and try to piece together parts of the narrative yourself.

I started yesterday and I'm about halfway through, so I'm really enjoying it.

Oh, and for the friend from whom I borrowed the book, that Annie's Goddess Dressing stain was there when you gave it to me, even though you haven't read it. Really!