Do you like romantic comedy? I sure do. There is nothing more delightful than a book featuring likable, witty characters, humorous situations, and dialogue that makes me smile, then go somewhere private to read it because I’m laughing so hard I embarrass myself in public. I’ve had the good fortune to read quite a few authors who write delightful romantic comedies. Elizabeth Bevarly, Rachel Gibson, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Janet Evanovich are mistresses of humor.

As for Kylie Adams. Sorry sir, you ain’t got it. I liked the cover of Fly Me To The Moon and that’s all I liked about it.

For the third time, Sofia Cardinelli has left daddy-picked groom at the altar. By now, the guests are used to it, at least they get to dress up and eat a nice dinner. Sofia is a clerk at a make-up counter who has dreams of starting her own cosmetic company. Of course, since she has the emotional maturity of a two-year-old, and the business sense of one as well, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for her, but then, her father is a “made man,” and if you watch The Sopranos, you know what this means.. Until her father cools down, Sofia is going to lay low and stay with her fellow worker Ricky (he’s gay and her best girlfriend).

On her lunch break Sofia meets Ben Estes, who is entertaining at the mall. Ben is a lawyer who doesn’t practice; instead he has dreams of being a singer. While Ben is waiting for his big break, he sings at bars and malls, all the while dodging his landlord. Ben just slays Sofia with his studly self and repertoire of Sinatra songs.

One of Ben’s regular gigs is at Sofia’s family’s favorite restaurant. Sofia goes there to make nice and apologize to her gangster-lite daddy, assorted “colorful” family members and a couple of daddy’s “associates.” Sofia swoons over Ben’s act while daddy is outraged that anyone would dare to sing Frank’s songs and the whole thing deteriorates into a shoving, shouting match while Ben gets out of there.

Sofia wins a contest at work for having the best sales (odd for someone who seems to spend all her time taking breaks and gossiping). The prize is a vacation for two at a California resort. Who to take? About that time, here comes Ben. Seems as though a couple of Mr. Cardinelli’s goons, Fat Larry and Little Bo, are looking for him. So he takes off with Sofia to the resort in California along with her yappy, pissing little dog Mr. Pickles. Before the book mercifully ends, Ben and Sofia are married (I give it a month) and he is forced to take a job as a stripper. By then, I was sorry I was reading this on my lunch break. Liquor is not allowed on the job and I was sorely in need of a drink.

In this book, the author managed to insult: Older women, fat women, Italians, Jews, Republicans, southerners, and Episcopalians (!) all under the guise of cute’n’kooky humor. Now, I am a member of three of those groups (you guess which three and I’ll tell you if you’re right) and while I wasn’t insulted, I didn’t laugh simply because it just wasn’t funny. As for the prose: Love glove, spunk gun, sacred essence?! Ugh. “…his legs hung off the foot of the bed just past his calves.” Huh? And another thing, the sentences were so full of italics, it got very annoying and downright silly. To sum it up: if I were stuck on a desert island with only this book, I’d never read again.

There is nothing more unfunny than humor that falls flat. I enjoy all kinds of humor from Three Stooges pratfalls to Monty Python’s verbal zingers. But I couldn’t find anything at all to laugh about in Fly Me To The Moon. It was supposed to be a farcical romantic comedy with zany, lovable characters but it had all the lightness of a hippo trying to dance ballet while wearing lead toe shoes. To make a comedy work, no matter how outrageous the characters may be they have to be at least plausible. I can really imagine someone like Stephanie Plum. But these characters? Stupid, Silly, Charmless, Dumb, Idiots, (where’s my Thesaurus?) Airheads, Buffoons. Now if you all will pardon me, I am going to run this book through the paper shredder and add it to the compost pile. Or maybe I’ll get my son to fire up a model rocket and fly it to the moon, just so I don’t have to see it again.