We all great up reading about Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and Encyclopedia Brown. What would have happened if our favorite young detectives were real people. Cain has taken them all and tried to create a world that did just that with this book, which takes on the form of a tell-all memoir by Nancy Drew herself.

In her world, Carolyn Keene was a college roommate of Nancy's who was not only jealous of our favorite girl detective, but decided to write a series of adventures based on Nancy's life. As in the books, Nancy (and her friends) really did do much of what happened in those books, but they went on to live their own lives as well.

Now that she is in the waning years of her life, Nancy is looking back and wants to share the realities of her life. While she married her high school sweetheart, she also held a secret love for on of the other young detectives we know and well ... and even had his love child. I found it hysterical that she seemed to have a major problem with Cherry Adams (the girl detective who was constantly taking on the role of a different kind of nurse in each of her books). Cherry and Nancy definitely did not like each other.

I thought the book was a lot of fun. Cain does a great job of capturing the tone of the real Nancy Drew books, and each chapter is accompanied with an illustration in the style that was also found in the originals. True fans of the various detective series should beware, though, since many of our favorite young sleuths ended up having lives that would not be what we had hoped, but it only makes the book more interesting. This is definitely a parody, as stated on the cover, and if you are defensive of the characters, you may not be too happy.

That doesn't stop this from being a truly enjoyable romp that not only brings back memories, but a put a smile on my face.