The Broke Diaries: The Completely True and Hilarious Misadventures of a Good Girl Gone Broke

The Internet has been around long enough as a venue for works like the diary presented here, which debuted online, for such works to have lost some of their mystique. Still, Nissel deserves her moment in the sun. As a struggling college student at the University of Pennsylvania, she decided that to keep her mind off her empty stomach, she would keep a journal of her days and post it on the Net. The result is a series of biting, funny entries about the evil atmosphere of check-cashing offices, the horror of being two cents short for the grocery bill and the joys of making friends who buy dinner. Her wry thoughts about being flat broke will appeal to readers who enjoyed Bridget Jones's exploits and similarly sparky works. Nissel is no fictional Bridget, however, obsessing about weight and cigarettes. She's a city girl who knows the exact price of ramen noodles and the pain of counting pennies. Although she occasionally recycles material, she rants with aplomb, using colorful anecdotes (her elderly landlord comes for the rent and ends up falling asleep on the couch) to pull the reader further into her impoverished reality. She doesn't delve into the actual fear and pain associated with poverty, but views her time of hunger with amusement, like a financial misadventure that she always knew would end. Charming and sharp, Nissel's diary will be relished by anyone who's ever been a student and remembers those ramen noodles. (Apr.) Forecast: Already a palpable presence on okayplayer.com, a hip-hop Web site she cofounded that receives 500,000 visitors a day, Nissel has a solid base constituency. With a blurb from Chris Rock, a five-city author tour, stickering campaigns in several key cities and a low cover price, this paperback original is poised for success.