CHICK LIT MEMOIR
Let's Pretend This Never Happened - Jenny Lawson (2012)
Jenny Lawson is hilarious ... in a quirky, disturbed, and totally neurotic kind of way. Her memoir of life in rural Texas begins with her trying to fit in as a child, which from the minute you start this book, you will understand why that was never going to happen. Luckily for us, her sense of humour formed early and she parlayed the crazy of her everyday life into first a blog (The Bloggess), and now a book. Lawson chronicles the events in her life growing up, and as a married mother of one, with a dark, sharp wit that will make you laugh out loud and then question whether you really should, in fact, be laughing out loud at topics like dropping acid, giving birth, and burying your beloved dog. And then there is her family's strange obsession with small, dead, stuffed animals (taxidermy did not skip a generation!). While there is no disputing Jenny Lawson is a riot, I was also quite impressed with her husband, Victor, who keeps up with her wit, anxiety and tangents without missing a beat. Their conversations about housekeeping, Frappuccinos, and hairless rats are priceless and are conducted with completely straight faces as if they were discussing where to go for dinner, like a well-rehearsed stand-up comedy act. They say truth is stranger than fiction and while she does clarify that the book is a "mostly true" memoir, I'm pretty sure no one, not even Jenny Lawson, could make this stuff up. (LEK)
