Heather Armstrong—AKA Dooce, of dooce.com—is a super blogger. She began
blogging in 2001, got fired (and famous) for writing about work in
2002, and now gets over four million page views a month for her
dispatches from Salt Lake City about her daughter, her Mormon fam, and
whatever cute new thing she just bought. Ads on her site bring in
something absurd like $40,000 a month. And now she has a book.

It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a
Much Needed Margarita is a memoir about Armstrong’s first pregnancy
and the months following, what with the baby, breakdown, and margarita.
These years were documented on her blog, and the book offers no more
insight than what longtime readers already know. This is a memoir of a
mommy, not a blogger, and it’s a shame; Armstrong’s internet celebrity
is the most fascinating part of her life, but except for an
acknowledgment in the preface, she never mentions the blog. It’s like
if Lauren Conrad wrote a memoir and made no mention of The
Hills.

Armstrong is living the new American dream: writing about the
mundane on the internet and making bank from it. But this book shows
that blog success doesn’t necessarily mean literary success. Armstrong
has a very distinct writing style that employs hyperbole, metaphor, and
simile for every single thing she has ever described in the history of
the planet—plus LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS. In short and pithy blog
posts, these devices are novel and fun. But a whole book leads to
caps-induced headaches and a longing for short and simple
descriptions.

Personal blogs are a fix for procrastination junkies; they are the
distraction. Without the addition of new insight or a broader view of
what she’s already covered, this ex-Mormon’s punch line-infused,
blow-by-blow description of her battle with pre- and postpartum
depression doesn’t hold up as the main show. But if Armstrong is as
successful in print as she is on the net, she’ll probably have another
book in a few years. Here’s hoping for fewer hyperbolic end-times
descriptions of morning sickness, and more insight into her strange,
21st-century life. That will be a book worth reading. Until then, stick
to the blog.