Let's Pretend This Never Happened

 

It all started for me with Beyonce the chicken.  I'm an avid reader of Young House Love, and they mentioned it one day, and it was the funniest thing I had ever read.  I had the church giggles at work, which is really quite dangerous, especially when you are laughing at a giant metal chicken that will cut you.  For those of you that know Beyonce's story, that's not even the funniest thing is this book, not even close!

Jenny Lawson writes about her childhood in rural Texas, her anxiety disorder, her difficult pregnancy, and her battle with rheumatoid arthritis in such an unfiltered and hysterical way that you will be crying with laughter through most of the book.  I do appreciate that she opens the book by saying most people would be too offended to read this book, so readers should feel proud to be so open-minded, but that one thing that you're really defensive about will be mocked too, so she apologizes for offending you, because it's true, you'll be offended when you read this book, but she's equal opportunity like that.  

Sidenote, I read this book on my Kindle, which is a good and bad thing.  Good because it's not just lying around for impressionable little eyes to run across.  Someday I'll have to find out if I can password protect certain books on my Kindle because it is a great way to get away with guilty pleasure reading.  I've always thought it would be the perfect way to enjoy 50 Shades of Grey, because you could be reading it on the train and in two clicks be reading War and Peace if your seat mate got nosy.  (Sidenote within a sidenote-do not read Let's Pretend This Never Happened on a train because you'll look like a crazy person laughing out loud to War and Peace.)  Reading on the Kindle is bad in this case because there are several pictures included to confirm some of the stranger stories.  Like when Jenny was mauled by a pack of wild dogs.  (The dogs weren't wild so much as tame pets, and it wasn't a pack, it was one and an on-looker, but she did get bitten).  So, in that regard, it would have been nice to have some clearer images.  But my Kindle is old, so if you were reading on a Fire, then you wouldn't have this problem.  I say, read on the Kindle!  Just not on the train-seriously, people will think you are nuts!

I admit that aside from the tales of Beyonce, I haven't read The Bloggess.  I can tell you that the Beyonce story is exactly like it is from the blog, which is a very informal rant filled with inappropriate language and crude comments.  So, this book is not for the politically correct.  This book is rife with foul language, inappropriate topics, ridiculously embarrassing scenarios that make you cringe and way too much taxidermy for a book classified as a memoir, unless it's a memoir entitled "Stuffed:  My Life as a Taxidermist".  But that's why this is a great book!  For those of you with a totally inappropriate sense of humor (and there are a lot of those people judging by the ratings of Tosh.0), it's hilarious.  There were seriously times when I had to put the book down because I was laughing so hard.  And my husband would hear me laughing and he would ask why, and I'd try to explain that I was reading about the time that Jenny tried to do a DIY colon cleanse  so her anti-depressants would be more effective and took like 3x the recommended about of extra strength laxative and she exploded basically, so then she tried taking Pepto to cancel out the laxative and her cats are pushing things under the bathroom door and she thinks it's a serial killer.  Oh, you just have to read it, you'll cry, I promise.  

Since my blog is mostly devoted to children's and young adult books, I can't even get into some of the more interesting and socially awkward moments.  So, let's just say, if you like Dave Sedaris, imagine him on Xanax with no filter what so ever, an editor that just walked out on this crazy assignment and a stuffed boar's head in the living room, and you're getting close to what this book is about.  

Ridiculously funny for those of you that are not too easily offended.  If you are easily offended, try The Night Circus instead and feel very intelligent for reading real literature, not some blog-based smut. 

Me, I'll be catching up on The Bloggess!

Happy Reading!