Title: Let's Pretend This Never Happened
Author: Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess)
Publisher: Berkley Books 2012
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 372
Rating: 5+++++/5 stars
Reading Challenges: T4MC -- NYT Bestseller; Women Authors; TBR Pile; Eclectic -- Memoir
How I Got It: Birthday present for me!
When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it.
In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives.
I have been reading The Bloggess' blog for awhile now and I swear she sees into my soul. I may not have participated in her particularly crazy adventures, but I definitely have her twisted sense of humor. And I tend to see the world as a very strange place. J can attest that I am pretty strange at times. Much of what Lawson says out loud, I've thought in my head. I guess I just have a better internal filter than she does. But that's what makes her so amazing. She's her and no one else. Her memoir made me laugh at loud so much that J repeatedly asked me if I was okay. It also made me get a bit teary eyed (especially the chapter about Barnaby Jones Pickle). Among all the stories, Lawson conveys a great message of accepting yourself and the crazy. My favorite lesson comes from the chapter "Jenkins, You Motherfucker":
Soon afterward, Jenkins and the other turkeys disappeared from our lives, but the lessons I learned from them still remain: Turkeys make terrible pets, you should never trust your father to identify poultry, and you should accept who you are, flaws and all, because if you try to be someone you aren't, then eventually some turkey is going to shit all over your well-crafted facade, so you might as well save yourself the effort and enjoy your zombie books.
Thank you Jenny Lawson for making me laugh and cry and feel more comfortable being me. "Knock, knock, motherfucker!"