Review: Choking Hazard:  Too Much Laughter to Eat Safely
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 18, 2012
What can be worse than losing your job, home and boyfriend all in one day?  You could get hit by a car.  Check.  Driven by a clown.  Check.  You could be animal-phobic and find yourself house-sitting at Neverland, where a foul-mouthed parrot calls you names in French, and a huge dog traps you in the bedroom.  Triple-check.  Day Two.  You wake up with a raging hangover and a new haircut, courtesy of a playful chimp named Pansy and your own manicure scissors.  And your best pearl earrings are gone.  Not being familiar with baby chimps, it doesn't occur to you they put everything in their mouths, just like human babies--until Pansy writhes in pain and you have to call that cute veterinarian.  Yeah--the one who laughed at you when he rescued you from the bedroom last night. And then after he got the beast into the basement, he offered you wine on an empty stomach.  Funny how he knew right where everything was in the bimbo starlet's house.  Not that it should matter.  You're outa here, as soon as you land a job back in Manhattan.  Or so you think...I love animals, so I would probably have scratched Henry (the huge dog) behind the ears, cuddled Pansy, and since I never took French I would have thought the foul-mouthed bird was quaint and not realized he was cussing.  The hot vet would have been young enough to be my son.  I would more likely have schmoozed with his Aunt and joined the local Stitch 'n' Bitch club.  But that's me and Ms. Druskin would not have had a book if her house-sitter had been my age and loved animals, or if she had loved New Jersey for that matter.  But she doesn't, and her struggles to survive Neverland East kept me laughing my derriere off, as I read the book.  This is the first book in the Liberty Heights series.  I can't wait to see what that town gets up to next.  Meanwhile, if you want a good laugh and a feel-good plot, check out Animal Crackers.