Stories I'd Tell in Bars
by Jen Lancaster
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Unfiltered, Unsupervised. Unapologetic. Older -- arguably not wiser -- Lancaster gets back to basics in this hilarious essay collection, sharing the stories she'd tell in bars, if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to bars. From advice on how to stay married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose to creating an incident at the cheese counter during a stab at Whole30, she's just like you ... only louder.Tags
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I do love Jen Lancaster's memoirs. For the most part I have enjoyed them all, though there were two I was pretty meh about after finishing. This one gets four stars from me, I deducted a star because she includes her script for a housewife dramedy that I guess she pitched to people in Hollywood. It just felt like a lazy way for her to end her memoir. I needed a better wrap up than the one she gave us readers.
Now that Lancaster is almost 50, she seems way more laid back and pragmatic about her upbringing and how that affected her as an adult.
We get more details about her wedding day to Fletch (her husband) and I found myself sympathizing with her. We also get to read about her newfound pushes to lose weight and eat healthy. We also got show more a hilarious story (sorry it happened!) about her and her friends trip to Italy with the worst tour ever. Let's just say fleabites were involved.
What I really enjoyed about this one is that if you have been reading Jen for a long time there are a lot of callbacks to earlier incidents so it was nice to read the other side of things, and or find out what happened after something is brought up in a book (i.e. Jen learning Italian).
I also get that Lancaster is dealing with a sense of not knowing where she belongs in the book community. She is writing YA books (I have not read those) and she wrote one book called "women's literature" that I thought was okay (By the Numbers). I think she sees a lot of new authors popping up via other means and doesn't know what to do since she's not the next new hot thing. I would suggest if she still loves to do it, keep writing her memoirs. And also, I wouldn't be in a hurry to tap into a market. I would just write what she knows/likes and see where she can go from. Not every book is going to be "The Hate U Give" kind of awesome.
As I said above, I was not thrilled with the last 12 percent of the book just being her script for a television show. I don't know what she or her editor were thinking. It just felt lazy and I can now see why some readers were not that happy with this one. If I exclude that last 12 percent this would have been a 5 star book, with it, it's only 4 stars. show less
Now that Lancaster is almost 50, she seems way more laid back and pragmatic about her upbringing and how that affected her as an adult.
We get more details about her wedding day to Fletch (her husband) and I found myself sympathizing with her. We also get to read about her newfound pushes to lose weight and eat healthy. We also got show more a hilarious story (sorry it happened!) about her and her friends trip to Italy with the worst tour ever. Let's just say fleabites were involved.
What I really enjoyed about this one is that if you have been reading Jen for a long time there are a lot of callbacks to earlier incidents so it was nice to read the other side of things, and or find out what happened after something is brought up in a book (i.e. Jen learning Italian).
I also get that Lancaster is dealing with a sense of not knowing where she belongs in the book community. She is writing YA books (I have not read those) and she wrote one book called "women's literature" that I thought was okay (By the Numbers). I think she sees a lot of new authors popping up via other means and doesn't know what to do since she's not the next new hot thing. I would suggest if she still loves to do it, keep writing her memoirs. And also, I wouldn't be in a hurry to tap into a market. I would just write what she knows/likes and see where she can go from. Not every book is going to be "The Hate U Give" kind of awesome.
As I said above, I was not thrilled with the last 12 percent of the book just being her script for a television show. I don't know what she or her editor were thinking. It just felt lazy and I can now see why some readers were not that happy with this one. If I exclude that last 12 percent this would have been a 5 star book, with it, it's only 4 stars. show less
Made me laugh out loud!
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Author Information
21+ Works 7,475 Members
Jen Lancaster was born in November 1967. After graduating with a B. A. in political science, she worked for an HMO and then at a technology company. In December 2002, after being unemployed for over a year, she launched a website to air her frustrations about unemployment and it gained popularity quickly. Her first book, Bitter Is the New Black, show more was published in 2005. Her other works include Bright Lights, Big Ass; Such a Pretty Fat; Pretty in Plaid; My Fair Lazy; Jeneration X; If You Were Here, and the Tao of Martha. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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