Friday, July 17, 2015

"Let's Pretend This Never Happened" (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson (aka the Bloggess)


Three reasons why you should not read this book:

  1. It's extremely profane and inappropriate.
  2. It will make you think and write in the author's style for days, and you will be unable to blog as a result for fear you will sound like a cheap knock-off.
  3. It will make you laugh so hard you cry, and you'll do that so often that your sinuses rebel and your nose is stuffed up for more than a day after you finish the book.

You're welcome.

Okay, but if you're not going to be bothered by rampant profanity and endless discussions of personal bodily parts that my children don't know exist; and if you don't mind taking a break from blogging, only to go back to it days later and discover her voice is still there and you can't resist using it just a teensy bit; and if you have a lot of Kleenexes in your house anyway, or already have a head cold and more mucous doesn't matter at this point, then... it is really funny.

Particularly Good Bits (that I promise are not inappropriate at all):

"Potty training is not a fun subject to reminisce about.  It's more like a horrible death march through a haunted forest, and the trees are made of angry bears that you're allergic to" (p. 134) (This is sadly true.)

"Women scare me enough, but bloggers can be even more frightening to deal with.  Most bloggers are emotionally unstable and are often awkward in social situations, which is why so many of us turned to blogging in the first place" (p. 171).  (This is also sadly true.)

"I started to suspect that in the past life he'd been a small and not very good pirate whose specialty was lashing himself to the mast at the most inopportune times.  I could imagine the captain giving him the same pitying but frustrated look when he came up from his nap to find that Barnaby Jones Pirate had lashed himself to the wheel of the ship because he thought he saw a cyclone, which turned out to be some birds" (p. 248).  (We had a dog exactly like that.)

"...there is joy in embracing -- rather than running screaming from -- the utter absurdity of life" (p. 308).  (I heartily agree.)

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  R.  Or possibly NC-17, except I've never seen an NC-17-rated movie, thankyouverymuch, so I wouldn't know if this really warrants that rating or not.  But seriously, don't read this book.

8 comments:

  1. Okay. I'll keep away from it. :-)

    Is it strange that I sometimes LIKE to hear than books are bad? Sometimes when I hear about all the good books (oh, here's another good book! Naomi, I recommend THIS one! Oh, you MUST READ THIS!) I get so overpowered and my to-read list just grows and grows. :-)
    So when I hear about bad books I have this 'phew-my-to-read-list-DIDN'T-just-grow-again'-feeling.

    :-)

    ~ Naomi

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    1. Naomi, I don't think it's strange at all! I like that too. And even better is when a blogger I trust says a particular author isn't worth reading, or writes things I wouldn't like -- that can mean lots of books that never have to be on my TBR list!

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  2. NC-17. One of THOSE, huh?
    I think I'll stick to my own writing :)

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  3. Oh, potty training. Every time my son has an accident, I think, "So we meet again, evil potty training." But he's actually doing pretty well, so this hasn't been such an issue lately. I could probably still read this and not mind TOO much, but who has the time with so many better things to read? Thanks for the heads-up.

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    1. Yeah, potty training is horrible. We waited until our son turned 4 to start him, and that was one of the best decisions we ever made, because he was fully trained within a couple days (except for nights -- still working on that). My first daughter decided at 3 she was ready, but she really wasn't, and we went back to diapers until she was 3 1/2, when she wanted to try again, and I think it took about a day to be accident-free. Now, my third kid, also a girl? She's 3 1/2, and she keeps thinking she wants to be potty-trained, but then she gets bored and annoyed with having to go to the bathroom, so I told her nope, we're not doing this anymore until she's 4. Because yeah... cleaning up pee puddles makes me super cranky.

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    2. We have mine in pull-ups at night time so he still has the option to go, but he rarely does unless he's avoiding sleep. He got really excited when we let him pick out training pants and underwear designs for himself, so he's done a little better since then. Buzz Lightyear and Mickey Mouse are strong motivators!

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    3. Yeah, Thomas the Tank Engine and Lightning McQueen were good motivators for Sam. Elsa and Anna and Cinderella and Minnie Mouse did the same for Sarah :-) Both of them are still in underjams at night, though Sarah stays dry a couple of nights a week.

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