Reminder for readers of my personal blog: all of my reviews are cross-posted from the Cannonball Read V group blog. Below is what I posted over there, since this book has been reviewed approximately a million times between this and the prior Cannonball. For everyone else who hasn't read all of those reviews, I'll include a Goodreads summary at the end.
So we don’t need to recap this one, right? Since this book has
essentially become destined to be reviewed at least once a week? You
reap what you sow, cannonballers! If everyone is going to talk about how
great it is, the rest of us are going to want to read it!
Anyway, there can’t be much left to say about either the content or the quality of the book. It’s definitely funny, but there is a noticeably more raw quality to the humor and writing that I think is indicative of The Bloggess’ background (blogging, obviously, as opposed to “novelist.”) The humor here is pretty organic, derived from humorous situations, rather than constructed “jokes.” But as we all know, you still need the right wit and timing to re-tell a funny story and have it still be funny, as opposed to “I guess you had to be there,” so Lawson definitely succeeds on that front. You do get a lot of “And then I punched the dog in the face. Just kidding, that didn’t happen. But what actually happened is even worse. I bet you’re getting nervous, but that’s okay, because getting nervous burns calories. So really, you should be thanking me.” Personally, I respond really well to that in blogs, but it felt admittedly weird to be reading it in a hardbound book. I know that makes no sense, but it’s the truth. And since I still did laugh and grow really fond of everyone in the memoir, I’m not going to actually “penalize” the book for my own cognitive dissonance.
So, anyway, recommended, yadda yadda, in case you were waiting for my final say.
Goodreads summary: Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In the #1 New York Times bestseller, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text.
Anyway, there can’t be much left to say about either the content or the quality of the book. It’s definitely funny, but there is a noticeably more raw quality to the humor and writing that I think is indicative of The Bloggess’ background (blogging, obviously, as opposed to “novelist.”) The humor here is pretty organic, derived from humorous situations, rather than constructed “jokes.” But as we all know, you still need the right wit and timing to re-tell a funny story and have it still be funny, as opposed to “I guess you had to be there,” so Lawson definitely succeeds on that front. You do get a lot of “And then I punched the dog in the face. Just kidding, that didn’t happen. But what actually happened is even worse. I bet you’re getting nervous, but that’s okay, because getting nervous burns calories. So really, you should be thanking me.” Personally, I respond really well to that in blogs, but it felt admittedly weird to be reading it in a hardbound book. I know that makes no sense, but it’s the truth. And since I still did laugh and grow really fond of everyone in the memoir, I’m not going to actually “penalize” the book for my own cognitive dissonance.
So, anyway, recommended, yadda yadda, in case you were waiting for my final say.
Goodreads summary: Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In the #1 New York Times bestseller, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text.
This is a very odd, funny, sometimes sad, book. Had quite a few "laugh out loud" moments. Any time I see some particularly hideous or weird taxidermy, I now think of Jenny and her father. ;)
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