Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)
by Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess
by Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess
313 pages
G. P. Putnam’s Sons (amy einhorn books), 2012
humor/auto-biography
Read in 4 days
My Star Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Call me Ishmael."
My Review: I found The Bloggess through Twitter and instantly took a disliking to her! No I’m kidding, I instantly was a HUGE fan because she did what I thought no one else in the business of blogging would do (remove dirty thoughts now!) she answered my questions! Mind you, some may have been dumb at the time but I appreciated her taking time out of what I’m sure was an adventurous and purely unplanned day, to answer my questions. Jenny, I thank you, again…
Now onto my review. It ties into the fact that she was in New York City the day her book was released for a book signing. I honestly would not have known about it had I not been at the B&N on 86th street weeks before and instantly noticed her picture up on their big screen advertising her up and coming book signing. If you know The Bloggess at all, her photograph of her hair in curlers is easily recognizable. Initially I was not planning to arrive early for the signing (to my own stupidity) but I’m glad I did because way before it started (promptly at 7pm as advertised and for that I thank you Jenny again! Not everyone is as “on time” as you when it comes to book signings) there was standing room only. I think her event was one of the largest book signings I’ve been to (not counting the two former Presidents of the United States book signings I’ve been to: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton). To me that’s saying something. I was unaware just how powerful the blogging world can be and how supportive they are until this day.
Okay, seriously, NOW onto my review of her book! I started reading it on my way home from said book signing. After listening to her read and entire chapter to us I absolutely had to start reading her book. As a small sample (if you have no idea who she is or have never read her blog before) here is the title of the chapter she bravely read to us: The Psychopath on the Other Side of the Bathroom Door
As she says throughout her book, MOST, if not ALL of what she shares with us about her life from childhood to adulthood, really truly happened. I’ve read her blogs and as unbelievable as they may sound, I have grown to not only believe her but to appreciate that no matter how messed up I find my life to be I’ve never gotten my arm stuck up inside a cows vagina! Yes, that actually happened to her! Read her book if you don’t believe me!
I laughed till I cried and couldn’t keep reading because the tears were in my way. When I finished wiping my tears away I’d read a few more sentences and there they would return! If it wasn’t for the laughing till I was crying and this crazy job I have that insists I work from 8:45am-5:15pm during the week I probably would have finished this book in less that 4 days. I’m ashamed of myself for pausing from reading this book to do life things as well, like bathing and eating and sleeping. Although I did read while I was eating so I guess I can be partly forgiven because at least I tried to read it in less than four days!
I recommend this book for the sarcastic, for the one who loves humor (especially when you know all this stuff is true and not made up!), and for those of us who need a change of pace from those books with proper sentence structure and correctly spelled words and crap! They are SO overrated!
It’s so good I wish I could read it to you right now and just not stop till I was done (or at least till you begged me to because you found it genuinely funny and promised to go buy your own copy). Instead, I’m going to share with you the opening paragraph of her first chapter and if that doesn’t make you want to rush out and buy a copy or download it on your e-reader (I hate those damn things by the way!!) then I give up on you entirely! Weirdo!
I Was a Three-Year-Old Arsonist
Call me Ishmael. I won’t answer to it, because it’s not my name, but it’s much more agreeable than most of the things I’ve been called. “Call me ‘that-weird-chick-who-says-“fuck”-a-lot” is probably more accurate, but “Ishmael” seems classier, and it makes a way more respectable beginning than the sentence I’d originally written, which was about how I’d just run into my gynecologist at Starbucks and she totally looked right past me like she didn’t even know me. And so I stood there wondering whether that’s something she does on purpose to make her clients feel less uncomfortable, or whether she genuinely didn’t recognize me without my vagina. Either way, it’s very disconcerting when people who’ve been inside your vagina don’t acknowledge your existence. Also, I just want to clarify that I don’t mean “without my vagina” like I didn’t have it with me at the time. I just meant that I wasn’t, you know…displaying it while I was at Starbucks. That’s probably understood, but I thought I should clarify, since it’s the first chapter and you don’t know that much about me. So just to clarify, I always have my vagina with me. It’s like my American Express card. (In that I don’t leave home without it. Not that I use it to buy stuff with.) - Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess (Let’s Pretend This Never Happened)
If you want to know more about Jenny Lawson, please visit her site.
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