I blamed the blog-to-book conversion.

Then, I read the first quarter of Doreen Orion's Queen of the Road. I couldn't get into that either. I was blaming this on the fact that the author - a grown woman and psychiatrist - constantly referred to herself as a "Long Island princess" and talked about how her husband did everything for her. And THEN, she made reference to updating her blog. And I blamed that -- I'm sure enough people commented and complimented her on her blog that it didn't seem weird and forced when she first proclaimed utter uselessness in day-to-day survival and then tried to moralize about the Greater Meaning she and her husband found traveling in a converted bus ... but as I said, I couldn't get into the book.

And THEN, my roommate let me borrow Diablo Cody's Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, which she wrote after chronicling said year in the life of an unlikely stripper on a blog. And let's just pause and consider her name. If you chose a pen name like Diablo Cody, you have to be an awesome writer, right? (Note to self: Be cool enough to one day warrant a pen name.)

And, according to Wikipedia (which, I know is evil but use anyway), she wrote the screenplay to Juno and Jennifer's Body.

So, that information alone should be enough to disprove my blog-to-book blahness curse. (And to prove it, you should read the book, if you can handle 212 pages mostly about stripping.)

BUT, Bri from Girls Guide to Homelessness just got a book deal! Let's recap: She had a job, lost it, became homeless, lived in a truck and camper she inherited after her father committed suicide, fell in love with another homeless blogger (who is originally from Scotland), had some weird impound problem with said camper that cost her $80 a night, landed an internship with Elle... and I'm sure I'm missing stuff. But I suspect her book will be awesome. And it sounds like the advance will get her into stable housing!