Lite Whines and Laughter: Mild Rants and Musings on the Mundane by Lee Gaitan is a collection of essays with a unique humorous spin proving to us that real life is always better than fiction. It will appeal to women from baby boomers to young mothers, and anyone else with a wacky sense of humour. Lee is a 62-year-old grandmother who teaches English as a second language. She uses her own life as the backdrop to her musings, making us howl with laughter. In the space of 42 chapters, Lee compares her present Colombian husband to her ex-husband, discusses parenting, grandparenting, rebel squirrels, a voyeur possum, customer service, becoming invisible with age and mad hair. It’s guaranteed to spice up your reading list and leave you chuckling long after you’ve finished it.
I loved this book. Fans of Erma Bombeck will love Lee Gaitan’s perception of the world. She has a knack of targeting the mundane and making it joyously wicked. I’m certain she had a whale of a time writing Lite Whines and Laughter. The pace is quick and the essays short, like a good joke. I particularly enjoyed the extended metaphors and clever turns of phrase used to create light-bulb moments that had me exclaiming, “But this is MY life!” As a teenager, I read all of Erma Bombeck’s books and was devastated to realize there would be no more, but with the discovery of Lee Gaitan, I have found a new laugh-out-loud guru to entertain me with her tongue-in-cheek humor and mischievous way of relating to the world.
Review originally written for and published by Readers’ Favorite.
