The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories by Simon Rich is a collection of eclectic and often surreal short stories centering around love and romance. For the most part, I very much enjoyed this book. It was an incredibly fast read, but I thought that it ultimately matched the book’s funny and slapdash style. Typically I wouldn’t consider a book’s being “slapdash” to be a good thing, but with The Last Girlfriend on Earth I didn’t really have a problem with it. In fact, I think the book’s thrown together nature adds to its predominantly light and breezy feeling. The Last Girlfriend on Earth often feels more like a collection of comedy sketches than a traditional collection of short stories. And after finding out that Simon Rich is a former writer and producer for SNL, this makes a lot of sense. There were some stories in the book that I actually thought would have been better as comedy sketches. And although I really didn’t enjoy a couple of the stories, generally I found that the good outweighed the bad. Some stand out stories were “Unprotected,” “I Love Girl,” and “The Last Girlfriend on Earth.”
I found this book while in the midst of a reading slump and it truly reminded me how much fun reading can be. I honestly couldn’t put it down, and while I didn’t love every story, overall this was a very enjoyable book. I wouldn’t call it the “comedy work of the century” or anything, but there is no denying that The Last Girlfriend on Earth is a very fun book with a surprisingly potent dosage of emotional truth. I would recommend The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories to anyone looking for something funny, offbeat, and heartfelt to brighten their day.