The best review I could give to Lizzy Morrow’s wild and tender ride of a novel, The Girl On The Moon, would be to share excerpts from her tragic and hilarious book.

But I want to entice you without giving too much away - so I will stick to  tossing you just  a few hints and nibbles of this luscious read.

Now, on the surface, the book would appear to be quite sad. After all, it’s about a thirty year old woman who hates her life, hates herself, and has a mentally ill mother who calls her on a daily basis to share such loving gems of advice as: you have a big head. Don’t lose any more weight, because it will make your head look bigger.

 But this is actually a very funny book about a very painful life. "The Girl On The Moon" will embarrass you: it will make you laugh out loud on the bus, in the break room, and in Starbucks. People will stare.

    “Dear Diary,

I know it’s in poor taste, but when  a schizophrenic woman with a voice three octaves lower than a normal female voice calls your boss a penis wrinkle, it’s hard not to laugh.”

 This is the life of Glamour Girl wannabe, Mia.  She is beautiful and brilliant, but sees herself as fat, cellulite ridden, and hopelessly lost. (Oh, and with a head shaped like a potato).  She is obsessed with self “improvement” but her efforts are completely misguided, because her horrific version of herself has nothing to do with reality. Lizzy studies herself so closely that she can’t really see herself at all.

 So what do you do when you’re beautiful and brilliant, but see yourself as a big fat dimpled potato head? (In other words, if you’re like 90% of young women in the US).

 You grasp and scramble and fight your way toward solid ground. You make yourself feel useful by caretaking crazy and destructive “friends” and you paint sexy clothes on your body to suck in attention from crazy and destructive men. That’s what you do. And that’s what Mia does.

 “I must focus. Focus. I mustn’t give in to the world. It’s trying to break me. I must not be this way…Tomorrow night I will go out with the man I intend to marry and then my life will have meaning and direction.”

 (You don't have to read the book to discover how that plan works out.)

 Mia also turns to therapy for salvation:

   "Dr. Lee thinks I should do something to help boost my ego and my self-esteem.

   'And what pills do you recommend for that?' I asked. He laughed. He thought I was just kidding.”

 Mia will hook her long painted nails into your heart from the very first page. She will pull you through a labyrinth of broken glass and dead ends. And she will make you gasp with laughter as you stumble along behind her.

 Will Mia make it to the center? There are times when it really doesn’t look good. There are times when the center seems just a step away and then a wall comes crashing down, blocking her path and gut-punching her spirit. There are times when the labyrinth of her life seems just too dark and scary to lead anywhere. And yet, Mia continues to touch up her eyeliner, straighten her short tight skirt, and move on forward through the maze, precariously balanced on her high-heeled "fuck me" shoes.

 I strongly recommend that you embark on this dark, bright, complex adventure with the magnificent Mia. I promise, you will not  emerge from the  maze of her life empty handed.

 The Girl On The Moon can be purchased at

 http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Moon-Diary-Lizzy-Morrow/dp/0595373364/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273079423&sr=1-1