Let's Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir)

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have a childhood that was not like mine. I have no real frame of reference, but when I question strangers I've found that their childhood generally had much less blood in it, and also that strangers seem uncomfortable when you question them about their childhood. But really, what else are you going to talk about in line at the liquor store? Childhood trauma seems like the natural choice, since it's the reason why most of us are in line there to begin with.

Jenny Lawson, who writes a popular blog as The Blogess, has written a "mostly true" memoir called. After that sentence, you'll pretty much know if you want to read her book. It's written in the familiar, humorous tone often used by show more bloggers and the book sometimes feels like a particularly excellent and lengthy post. Lawson is a deeply weird individual (and I mean that in the best possible way), with a skewed sense of humor, the mouth of a syphilitic pirate, an unusual upbringing and a willingness to bare herself for our edification and entertainment. Let's Pretend This Never Happened walks that fine line between melodrama and humor, writing chapters that mix the very serious with the tremendously funny. This is a very funny book, of the kind not to be read on public transportation or in a Starbucks. show less

While reading this book, I had to distract myself with meditation and deep breathing, so that I wouldn't asphyxiate from unstoppable hysterical laughing and crying at the same time. Utterly delicious, this woman. I finished the book in a day and managed to ruin my husband's sleep by snorting uncontrollably in bed while reading her. It's been a while since someone's made me feel like this. I will be waiting for her next.

This memoir of Jenny Lawson (a.k.a. The Bloggess) is an absolute delight from start to finish. Here she traces various threads throughout her life, from her highly unusual childhood and adolescence, through various mental and physical illnesses, up to courtship and marriage and child-rearing. At times heart-breaking, sometimes just plain weird, frequently profane (truly, there's something in here to offend everyone ;-), it's always hilarious. Basically, if you like her blog, you'll enjoy this book.

This may be the funniest book I have ever read. Just reading the titles of the chapters can start me laughing again. This is the “almost true” story of the author growing up in rural Texas. Her list of “Things Most People Have Never Experienced or Could Have Even Possibly Imagined, but That Totally Happened to Me” includes as #11, “Most people don’t have to devote an entire year of therapy to a single ten-minute episode from their childhood.” And no, it does not involve abuse, unless you consider exposure to Stanley, the Magical Squirrel, as abuse. I could go on, but you just have to read this book.

It. Was. Awesome!! I don't think there were very many parts where I wasn't laughing. Sometimes so manically that my husband or the people on the bus would shift away. I laugh like that when reading her blog and I'm so thankful that she brought that same style and openness to this book too. I particularly enjoyed reading about her childhood with random animals being thrown in the house or dead squirrel puppets doing math, made mine seem so much more normal! It also made wish I was right there with her. I'll be honest for most of the book I wish I was her, or at least with her when shit went down.

It was an honest and open account of important times within her life (often not so chronologically like most memoirs) where she held nothing show more back. She spoke of the paralyzing anxiety, the crippling rheumatoid arthritis and the miscarriages she suffered until she was gifted with her daughter, Hailey. Yet through the tears of laughter and empathy I saw the courage this woman musters everyday to get up and find the humour in life. Jenny not only deals with the above but also in being a mother, a wife, a daughter and a friend, which those of us who don't deal with her darker moments can attest to being enough to deal with! I am thankful that she shared her story with us and so cannot wait to read more, and hopefully someday be graced with her presence!

A definite read for anyone - there is not one person who would not laugh or be disappointed with this book. Get it, read it, love it!!! show less

Jenny Lawson, aka the Bloggess, shares stories of her life, from her bizarre childhood growing up as the daughter of a taxidermist obsessed with animals both living and dead, to surreal conversations with her long-suffering husband, to accounts of various I Love Lucy-esque escapades. (Well, if Lucy swore a lot and worried about the zombie apocalypse more often.)

If you've ever read her blog -- and if you haven't, you really should -- you know just how utterly hilarious she can be, and that is fully in evidence here. I was already smiling by the time I finished looking over the table of contents, and by the end of the two-page introduction, I was laughing out loud. And even though she also talks about some very un-funny parts of her life show more -- miscarriages, crippling anxiety, chronic pain, the death of her beloved dog -- she somehow finds a way to make you laugh around and through it all. show less

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. She 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.

I always loved following the blog of The Bloggess, mostly because she’s so unrepentantly, irreverently offensive, and willing to display her own mortification for doing things that we all do and by doing so, make us all feel that much more human and that much less shame. She’s been great for my mental health, and I’ve been shoving this audiobook at everyone who might need even the show more slightest pick-me-up. As long as you don’t mind reading about vaginas. show less