Larry Doyle's "I Love You, Beth Cooper" takes a novel type (the coming-of-age story) and manages to work in equal amounts of pathos and hilarity without detriment to either. What you need to know about the main characters is that Denis Cooverman is class valedictorian and captain of the debate team (he speaks "nine languages, three of them real") and Beth Cooper is the head cheerleader. As another reviewer has noted, if you thought high school was the be-all and end-all of your life, skip it. If you're one of the rest of us, get this book right now!

Denis decides to declare his love for Beth (who scarcely knows he's alive--their only contact has been from being seated alphabetically next to each other in class) from the podium at their high school graduation. From that moment, at the very beginning, the comedy comes fast and furious, starting with the response Denis prepares to Beth, depending on whether her reaction to his oath of love is positive or negative:

POSITIVE: "Then we agree."

NEGATIVE: "It's my medication."

Some of the hundreds of great lines from the novel include:

"Denis jerked his face to the side--universal body language for 'Yes, I was staring at you'--while maintaining his casual yet defiant pose against the wall. It made him look like a male underwear model, except not."

"Denis thrust his hands back into the closet, praying they would reappear holding anything resembling a weapon. A loaded revolver would be ideal, though unlikely (his mother felt hunters should be tried for war crimes and his father drove a Prius)."

"Rich [Denis's best friend] chafed at Denis's brain ruining all their fun . . . but the doom-modeling had saved Rich's life on at least five occasions: the 'Super Juice' made from Orange Powerade, 'Batman returns' cereal, crushed Superman vitamins and topped with Mr. Muscle oven cleaner (age five); the re-enactment of the mining car chase from 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' (age 9); the 'Harold and Maude' fake suicide re-enactment and sympathy ploy (age 14) . . . "

"Valli Woolly invited no one [to her party]. She had disinvited just enough people ('I have to keep it small') for word to get around. She wanted everybody to be crashing, so that they would all feel unworthy and she could eject anyone at any time. She was that much of a bitch."

"The kitchen was unnecessarily immense, as no one in the Woolly family ate anything with the exception of Mr. Woolly, and all he ate was Scotch."

There's a little too much bully-boy-beats-up-cowering-skinny-guy in the book for my tastes (all of it extraordinarily cartoonish and distracting), but that's my only complaint. This is an amazingly funny, laugh-out-loud-and-read-parts-of-it-aloud-to-anyone-sitting-near-you kind of book.

As other reviewers have said, this book is hilarious. The broad plot (high school geek gets a fun, crazy, intermittently painful night with the head cheerleader) is just the skeleton on which Doyle is hanging all his spot-on, extremely funny observations about modern life (teen and otherwise).

I started this on a plane and kept disturbing my seatmate by laughing out loud. The descriptions remind me a lot of David Sedaris.

It's a great gift for grads ~ but don't think of it as *just* a teen book. Anybody who has been to high school will enjoy it.

One of the most enjoyable, entertaining books I've read in a long, long time. I read the book in two sittings, finishing up at 4 a.m. this morning. I laughed my way throughout, to the dismay of my wife who I'm afraid was trying to sleep. This is a funny, fast-paced read, and I was actually more than a bit sad to see it end, which is always the sign of an excellent book. I hope it finds the large audience it deserves.