I listened to Jenny Lawson’s hilarious and crazy memoir a few months ago on audiobook that I borrowed from the library, and I immediately knew I would love to feature it for BlogHer book club.
A little background – Jenny is the author of the popular blog The Bloggess, and honestly I had never followed it before she wrote this book. But I started seeing a lot of positive reviews across the interwebs, and since I’m always looking for light and funny audiobooks, I gave it a try. Oh man. It’s a trip. She says she’s saved the best stories of her life for this book, and many of them really are hard to believe. At times I was just open-mouthed in shock. (But in a good way.)
I am not a big humor connoisseur, I mean I like it but I don’t seek out funny stuff and I’m one of those people who will just say, “that’s funny” instead of laughing. So with that in mind I’ll say that I found this as funny and interesting as anything I’ve ever read. And now that I think back over it I realize that it deals with heavy issues like poverty, infertility, and mental illness yet it’s not depressing in the least. Jenny just deals with them effectively and shows that she’s learned to cope with it and find the humor in everything.
Of course I have to give warning about this book too. She herself says that she will probably offend you at some point when you read it, and for most people that’s probably true. Either with her language (yes there is way more profanity and discussion of…lady parts than I generally prefer in a book) and the subject matter can get touchy. Like I said, she uses humor in pretty much every situation, and that means she will probably make light of something that you don’t appreciate.
Anyway, after I read the book I started following her blog and because of the book I feel like I know her, especially because she narrated the audiobook herself. When I read the book this time it was a paperback version and although the experience of reading it is different, her voice comes through just as clear. There was also a bonus chapter which holds a journal of her first book tour, and it’s a lot like her blog which contains short snippets and conversations.
So basically, if you can stand some profanity and crazy subject matter, you definitely want to read this one. It’s just really, really funny.
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This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.
From Melissa:
I’ve been wanting to check this out! This may have to be my next “fun” read!