The Dreaded Book Report

99% of the time being a semi-successful mom/writer/corporate drone is kind of a thankless gig. I mean, yes, kids are cute (sometimes), writing is fun (sometimes) and the day job keeps the baby in Target brand diapers and me in Gap Outlet jeans (all the time), but on a day-to-day basis my life is the kind of thing that would have given 18-year-old-Lisa some serious nightmares.

But there are those rare occasions when our work is actually quite rewarding. Peeking in at sleeping children, getting a stellar annual review and reading a google alert informing you that some poor gal from Canada is being forced to write a book report on your book.

Yup. You know you've really arrived as a writer when the kids are looking for the Cliff Notes version of your esteemed work.

Alexis from Canada writes:

I need a summary of The Liar's Society.?

Please ... I need help. I am doing a book report on "the liar's society" and i need a summary of it ... the book s too big for me to do a summary. i need a sweet short to the point summary. Also if you can a list of characters and descriptions.

And we responded as any responsible writer would:

Hi Alexis - Today is your lucky day. We are the writers of this book and we happen to know a thing or two about book reports. Email us at lisa-laura@live.com and we might be able to work something out. Of course we're operating on the assumption that after we help you with your book report you'll think we're cool enough to actually read our book.

And for the record, Alexis, Kirkus totally agreed with your assessment about the book being too long, so you actually might have a future in literary criticism.

Ah, well, only time will tell if Alexis will actually take us up on our offer. I kind of hope she does.