Shannon Olson, Children of God Go Bowling

Olson’s debut novel Welcome to My Planet is one of our happy memories of the year 2000, and we’re pleased to report that the local heroine hooks us again with her followup, a sequel starring Planet’s semi-fictionalized version of Olson herself. A few more years down the road, Olson is now thirtysomething and still single in a world being taken over by couples with kids, looking for love and life outside of bad blind dates, a cramped apartment furnished by an ex, and her snarky mother Flo. She takes us on a whirlwind tour of the heartbreaking (yet often hilarious) process of recycling old college boyfriends, attending group therapy, and maintaining a desperate attachment to feng shui in an effort to clear out the spiritual clutter from her apartment and life. Wry, sometimes cynical and likably written, Bowling really strikes out. In the bowling sense of the word, that is. Olson reads at the Fitzgerald March 16.