White Girl Problems

March 12, 2012
Twitter feed phenomenon Babe Walker, the booze-fueled creation of brothers Tanner and David Oliver Cohen and gal pal Lara Schoenhals, makes the leap onto the printed page with a snarky, satirical diary/memoir of how the poor-little-rich-girl goes from the lap of luxury to rehab after a $246,893.50 shopping spree meltdown at Barneys. "I'm standing on the snowcapped mountain of my life, and the horizon looks beautiful," Babe writes in the first entry of her rehab diary, followed by: "I don't know, I just copied most of that from one of the pamphlets they gave me. I'm on a lot of Ativan right now." With a friends-and-family circle consisting of her music-industry lawyer dad, Jamaican baby nurse Mabinty, frenemy Genevieve, and gay-guy BFF Roman, Babe is a chic shopaholic in search of a labiaplasty, a therapist, a job, and true love. She's also a confessed train wreck, and giddily invites you to stare. And just when you think you might finally need to look away, there's the impossibly startlingâand hilariousâfaux insight that keeps you hooked. Take Babe's wicked grandmother (think Auntie Mame), who delivers epistolary post-mortem advice that Babe takes to heart (and to rehab): "Never cry. It causes swelling." Agent: Byrd Leavell, Waxman Literary Agency.