Juby, Susan. Alice, I think.

HarperCollins, Tempest. 292p. c2003. 0060515430. $15.99.

This novel is really a long comic monologue. If a comedian were in front of you telling these vignettes, you would be laughing. That's the effect Juby has with the written account--and it does feel like an oral narration somehow. Alice tells how it all started: when she was four she read The Hobbit with her father and decided she was a hobbit. But when she went to school for the first time, dressed as a hobbit (which her parents thought was really cute), she became an instant pariah with her classmates. So she is home schooled. And by the time she is an adolescent, she is really trying to understand herself and get some friends, even a boyfriend, maybe, and get on with her life.

Here are some lines: "... going back to school, which is probably the third most hostile environment on Earth after the deep ocean and Everest." "I wouldn't be surprised to hear about a few New Agers going postal--gunning down everyone in their yoga center or whatever." It's absolutely impossible to summarize this plot. Let's just settle for some facts: it involves a really good haircut, which is transforming, it introduces a girl cousin named Frank who wears "a short, shiny red one-piece jumpsuit covered with blue and yellow stars, black-and-white-striped legwarmers, some kind of half-bald feather boa, and silver slippers" to go horseback riding; it involves a family outing to a fish show, where Alice's genius younger brother exhibits his amazing fish. This is just a small sampling of the outlandish family shenanigans, as seen through the eyes of Alice, who is an engaging combination of naivete and cynicism. It may not be humor that appeals to absolutely everyone, but I believe most readers will be amused.