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

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

From by Cannonball Read 5 Review ...

This book is great, y’all.

Sorry. I’ve been known to say ‘y’all’ on occasion (who knows why – I grew up on the west coast), and after listening to Ms. Lawson read her hilarious, sweet and bizarre memoir, I’ve incorporated it into my vocabulary once again. I can’t help it.

You might be familiar with Jenny Lawson but not know it. She is better known as The Bloggess, and she is a brilliant writer. She’s open, a fantastic storyteller, and able to make me laugh out loud, tear up, cringe, and feel nostalgic for my own (pretty different from her) childhood. Often in the same chapter.

Lawson grew up poor in West Texas. Like, bread sack shoes poor. Her father was a taxidermist and would do show more things like stick his hand up a dead squirrel and treat it like a puppet, or bring baby bobcats into the home to hang out. While the subtitle of the book says the memoir is “mostly” true, the reality is that most any chapter struck me as both completely ridiculous and totally plausible. Do I believe that she once had her arm up a cow’s vagina during animal husbandry class? Yes. Do I believe that they had raccoons as pets for a while? Yes.

The stories follow Lawson from childhood through adulthood, into married life. She is a mother, although only a couple of her stories deal directly with her in that role, and one of them is a doozy. In that chapter she talks in great detail about her miscarriages and attempts at having a child. I cannot imagine how devastating that was, but Lawson has such a tremendous way with words that I felt like I was hearing a friend describe it. It had me tearing up and wanting to give her and her husband a big hug.

One thing I really appreciated about this book is that there is a sensitivity that runs throughout it. The stories are mostly hilarious and guffaw-inducing, but there’s a rawness and reality behind them. It is vulnerability and self-reflection and strength all wrapped up together.

A couple of things to keep in mind before you run out to buy the paperback version (on the NY Times bestseller list now! First: There is a ton of cursing in this book. I don’t subscribe to the idea that cursing is offensive or lazy writing. I think the concept of someone saying ‘heck’ when their personality and feelings want them to say ‘fuck’ is ridiculous, unless you’re in church or possibly at work. If the author is thinking ‘fuck’, she should write it down. Clearly, Lawson is often thinking ‘fuck.’ And it works. It makes sense, it isn’t shocking, and it’s a hell of a lot less jarring than someone reacting to something utterly absurd with ‘dagnabbit’ instead of ‘holy shit.’

Second: PLEASE buy the audio version of this book. Lawson has a fantastic voice and amazing comic timing. Her delivery of the stories makes them all the funnier. The audio book also has the bonus chapter that is found in the paperback version, plus a good 10 minutes at the very end which is just her in the sound booth, offering up some fantastic ideas. And saying ‘vagina’ a lot.

This book is staying on my phone for multiple re-listenings, and it is going to get five stars, because it is awesome. show less

Spent the day in Jenny Lawson's head

And it’s a hot fucking hilarious mess in there.

I started reading Jenny Lawson’s new book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) 10:00am and put it down around 5:00pm when I finally logged on to my computer—FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL DAY!

That never happens, and I wrote nothing all day. It’s not many books that can hold my attention or keep my interested long enough to keep my butt out of my writing chair and off the internet but Jenny’s book did. And it was totally worth it. It’s a funny, cringe worthy, touchingly human read.

My sister walked into the room once and asked if I was laughing or crying. I was doing both.

Seriously, go buy this book.

This is her website, show more target="_top">http://thebloggess.com/ show less

Jenny Lawson is known on the internet as The Bloggess, and she has quite a following. It’s easy to see why; she’s extremely funny, her life seems to have been made for comedy, and she’s open about all her problems. She grew up with the strangest father ever (not a bad father, just one with odd notions at times, like that it would be a good idea to toss a live bobcat into the lap of Jenny’s long suffering husband the first time they met. Not maliciously, just sort of ‘welcome to my home, here have a bobcat’ like another person would offer a cup of coffee), has a physical disability, and mental illness. You would think these things would get a person down, but, no, she takes it all in stride and shows it to the world so we can show more laugh with her.

This book takes her from her childhood to adulthood. It covers her father the taxidermist who worked out of the house, their poverty, high school, courtship and marriage to her husband Victor, and having their daughter. It also covers her mental illness (anxiety & panic attacks), and how this anxiety leads to (among other things) babbling about inappropriate subjects when out in public. This book convinced me that my life wasn’t the weirdest one ever and that one can love the life they are given.

I found the book extremely funny; despite my using “LOL” on the computer a lot, I don’t often actually laugh out loud when reading. This book made me do so. I should warn you that she swears a lot and writes about inappropriate subjects. I like these parts, but then, I have the sense of humor of a 10 year old boy. 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

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

This was a dangerous book to read in bed. Sometimes I would laugh so hard I was afraid I'd wake my husband up. Parts of this book were better for my tummy muscles than a Pilates class. Other parts, the parts about feeling weird and laughed at and left out, made me want to cry. I almost quit reading it 3 times because the hard parts were REALLY hard. But the laughing parts were REALLY funny. And from reading her blog, I know that she and Victor are still happily together and she is (mostly) OK, which is really an acceptable outcome.