A Shore Thing (2011)

The star of Snooki’s novel, A Shore Thing, is Gia: diminutive and defiantly curvy, hair curled in a gravity-defying pouf, skin roasted to a pumpkin hue. Sound familiar? Though Gia’s summer in Seaside Heights seems ripe for some glossy Jersey Shore-style trash, Literary Snooki has none of the decadent, bargain-Fellini charm of TV Snooki. The few moments of laugh-out-loud camp, as when Gia rescues a shark from a little boy — that's not a misprint — soon fall away, and the book becomes a strident paean to good friends, sassy grandmas, and the redemptive power of being friends with someone who looks, well, exactly like Snooki. C–