Fresh, funny, and poignant, My (not so) Storybook Life is old-fashioned humor mashed with literary spoofery. Elizabeth thinks of herself and her husband, Matt, as a modern-day Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. Together they’ve endured paint-color mishaps, sewage disasters, pest infestations, and a schnauzer that poops at tornado sirens. It’s hardly the domestic perfection a young Liz imagined while reading Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice. Could it be that these literary stalwarts had led her astray?

Liz tells the story of her own path to happiness, along the way seeking revenge on her literary heroes: Jo March has to cope with a soul-sucking job, Elizabeth Bennett shepherds a Duggar-size brood of kids, and Anne Shirley deals with a penny-pinching husband. But every comedy is balanced by tragedy. Angela was one of Liz’s closest friends, a kindred spirit who, at age thirty-one, was diagnosed with cancer. Before Angela, Liz was discontented. But it was the journey she took with this friend that made her realize that her house and its decorations and plumbing and dirty-clothes-covered Man Cave were not burdens to be tweaked and perfected, but blessings to be thankful for.