Let's Pretend This Never Happened (Jenny Lawson)

I first discovered Jenny Lawson's writing though her blog--The Bloggess. I must admit that she occasionally writes the way I think. Which is probably not a good thing. I tend to blame my family for that...and the fact that I once fell off a roof and my father and his friends laughed for an hour (after making sure that I was all right--"Just walk it off!"). And given how Jenny writes about her family, I feel like we are kindred spirits.

I do find it fascinating that I am referring to her as Jenny. I normally refer to writers by their last names. But then again, I believe that if I wrote a book about my upbringing, she would refer to me by my first name because people who can look at one another and say, "You just can't make stuff up like this about your family" tend to treat one another on a first name basis.

And while some readers might be tempted to rack up some of these stories to an overactive imagination, I am less inclined to do so...because I have stories that are just as traumatic and weird. And so do my sisters.

One of the things that I found extremely humorous was the ongoing notes from "the editor." This is something I am sure was created out of thin air; but it was darn funny, so who cares. Again, it hits a little close to home (I once had a publisher ask me not to mention my cats in my brief bio...but they are my beta readers--as in I read to them and they nap though the reading).

Anyways, enough digression, I recommend Jenny Lawson's "Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)" to anyone who has a family that you have stories about that end with "And you can't make this stuff up."

(Five out of five stars.)

[I proudly brought this book at my local bookstore, The Tattered Cover, where I gushed that I read Jenny's blog all the time.]