#CBR13 Book 24: "Broken (in the best possible way)" by Jenny Lawson

Page count: 288 pages

Audio book length: 8 hrs 18 mins

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Rep (features honest and sometimes graphic descriptions of life with a variety of mental and chronic illnesses)

 

It's no secret that Jenny Lawson, known online and to her followers as The Bloggess, suffers from a large number of ailments, both physical and mental. She has dealt with various kinds of chronic illness throughout her life and manages to be mostly very light-hearted and humourous about it. 

I chose to get this book in audio, because Jenny Lawson narrates her own books, and hearing her voice talk about all these frequently absurd, yet also occasionally absolutely heart-breaking things makes me feel closer to her. Due to the pandemic, this book was recorded in a closet in her house that she turned into a recording booth, which led to its own challenges, mainly that her cats didn't necessarily want to give her privacy while recording. At least a few places, the mews have been left in the finished book.

In contrast to her previous two books, I found this one a bit slow to get into. She also covers some really rather serious topics, and lets her readers in on some of the 'secrets' of a long-lasting and successful marriage, when one of the partners has as many health considerations as Ms. Lawson does. She is very honest about the tolls her depression takes on herself and those close to her, and one of the most affecting parts of the book is her open letter to her insurance company, literally begging them to fund essential life-improving treatments for her. As Ms. Lawson points out, in many cases, she's privileged enough to be able to afford some of them, but the vast majority of Americans cannot, and in a lot of cases, this can literally lead to deaths. 

As I'm currently struggling with anxiety and depression as well, reading about Ms. Lawson's stuggles certainly puts things into perspective. My depression is (hopefully) a passing thing, which will get better with medication and therapy. I'm never going to have to resort to ketamine injections or transcranial magnetic stimulation to live a halfway normal life. Jenny Lawson has shared a lot of her life with readers already, not only on her blog, but in two previous memoirs, Let's Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy. Both are highly recommended. However, if you read either or both of these before, and they didn't appeal to you, this book won't either. 

Judging a book by its cover: With her third book, Jenny Lawson wanted to do something different with the cover, and the very talented Omar Rayyan turned a photo where she's holding one of her many cats into this brilliant depiction of her and the monster that I think is supposed to symbolise her depression and/or chronic illness. Or possibly just the weirdness that is her life. Either way, I love it. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR7 Book 100: "Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things" by Jenny Lawson

Page count: 352 pages
Audio book length: 8 hrs 20 mins
Rating: 5 stars

Back in October 2012, when I finally decided to see what all these Cannonballers were on about when they kept gushing about a strange-looking book with a taxidermied mouse on the cover, and gave in and read Let's Pretend This Never Happened, I didn't actually know who the Bloggess was. What a sad and empty place my life was up until that point. Once I actually read her first book, I also went out and bought it in audio book (She sings the chapter titles - it's beyond delightful!) and now I check her blog at least a couple of times a week, often reading her posts out loud to my husband.

While I may have been sadly unaware of Jenny Lawson and her amazing writing back then, I have known about and anticipated her second books since it was first mentioned on her blog. While I think Ms. Lawson is wonderful when sharing funny anecdotes, cat pictures, strange polls, recounted arguments with her long-suffering husband Victor, craziness about taxidermy, what really truly speaks to me about her writing are the stories when she honestly talks about her depression, her anxiety and her other health problems. So the fact that this book was going to be about her mental illness made my expectations soar even higher.

I needn't have worried that Ms. Lawson was going to let me down. Her first book was "laugh until your ribs hurt" funny in places and very very sad in others. This book (which I also got in audio and because of that, I got a bonus chapter - yay!) deals with the long list of ailments that Jenny Lawson suffers from, physical and mental. It covers a range of very serious issues and had me crying in sympathy in places, but I also laughed so much that people gave me funny looks as I was running errands or travelling on public transport. It's a book that will shed a lot of valuable light on what it's like to suffer from crippling depression, anxiety and the like and which can help those sharing the life of someone suffering similar things maybe understand a bit better. I can promise that while it gets really dark in places, which is especially affecting as this is NOT a work of fiction, but a very honest memoir - these things are Jenny Lawson's life, the book is also stomach-achingly funny and follows a similar structure as her first book, with very serious topic followed by wonderfully absurd sections.

As well as talking honestly about her depression, rheumatoid arthritis, her social anxiety, her self esteem issues and the like, Ms. Lawson shares tales of going to Japan and Australia, life lessons from her dad, the story of Rory the raccoon (who's on the cover), many many arguments she's had with Victor and generously gives the reader the appendix to the book in the middle, because why would you want to put that stuff at the end?

In chapter 31, where she talks about nearly being attacked by a possum by her pool (there are a lot of possums in this book), she claims that she would much rather be attacked by baby penguins, because they aren't even vaguely scary. Just in case Ms. Lawson ever reads this review - I was bitten by a baby penguin at a zoo in Sweden when I was little. They may seem cute and fluffy and oh so harmless, but they have vicious, scissor-like beaks and I bled profusely. The lessons she learned about swans should be applied to penguins as well, just saying.

If you liked her first book, buy this. If you haven't read her first book, buy and read that first, then get this one. If you suffer from depression or anxiety, get this book. If you know anyone or suspect you may know someone who suffers from these things, get this book. With so many books I read, I want to quote Bernard Black from the extremely funny TV show Black Books: "You'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll change your life." In the case of Jenny Lawson's books, it's all too true. Her first book was spectacular, this one is even better. Why are you not reading/listening to it right now?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR4 Book 96: "Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)" by Jenny Lawson, the Bloggess

Page count: 289 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Date begun: October 18th, 2012
Date finished: October 19th, 2012

I'm ashamed to say that I'd not really heard of the Bloggess, Jenny Lawson, before I read this book. I'd also seen it reviewed in this year's Cannonball a bunch of times (I just counted - 11 people have already reviewed it), but never really paid any attention (or read the reviews - I'm sorry, guys), mainly because I saw the mouse on the cover and assumed it was a children's book or something. I did, however, read the review featured on Pajiba, and that's what finally made me realize that I had to get a copy for myself. I have since gone back and read all the other reviews - so many good writers on this blog this year!

I don't think I have laughed as loudly or as much, or annoyed my husband with insisting on reading bits out loud to him when he was busy doing something, with any book this year, or for as long as I can remember. Jenny Lawson's writing is hysterically funny, and several times I had to put the book down because I was wheezing for breath.

Jenny Lawson writes honestly and tragi-comically about her childhood in rural Texas, about her slightly scary taxidermist dad, about the poverty she grew up with, about her anxiety attacks, meeting her husband and their subsequent marriage, her difficulty conceiving, her many different and difficult health issues, and I'm now an avid follower of her blog, still reading my way backward through the bits I've missed.

While the book made me laugh, it also made me so glad that this woman is out there, sharing her life and her experiences in this way. It also made me deeply sympathetic for her husband, and I now feel so much better about my husband's "funny little ways", because even at his worst, it's nothing like some of the stuff I read about in this book. Unlike several of the comic celebrity biographies I've read, this affected me more, because Lawson is a regular person, who just happens to have a gift at writing about her life.

I'm sorry I didn't discover the book sooner, so I could join in the general chorus of acclaim for this book. I will from now on do my very best to obnoxiously pimp it to all my friends, to ensure that Lawson gets another book deal and will keep writing.