Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

I wish Goodreads let us give books half-stars; 3 stars feels like not enough, and 4 stars feels like way too many. So pretend that I gave this book 3.5 stars.

In short: the start of this book is 4 out of 5, the middle bits are 5 out of 5, and the end is about 3 out of 5.

I'll start with the good things. Once you get used to her, Jenny Lawson is extremely funny. The start of the book kind of feels like she's trying too hard, but as you keep reading, you start to realize it isn't the case; I'm pretty sure that's just who she is in real life.

Surprisingly, Jenny is at her best when writing about more serious issues like friendship, sickness, and the babies she lost. She manages to handle these issues in her trademark style, without getting extraordinarily depressing, or being particularly offensive.

If you read this book in print, I kind of pity you. The audio edition is entirely worth the price. Although I must admit that I purchased my copy from audible for $5. But those of you reading the print book, instead of listening to it as Delivered by the author herself, missed a lot. First of all, Jenny feels the need to sing every chapter heading, for some strange reason that I really don't understand. This does add something to the book, although I'm not sure quite what. Second, she's an entirely natural sounding reader, giving the audiobook a conversational feel that I suspect would be missing from letters on a page. Third, some of the included sound effects were just so silly that they made me laugh in and of themselves. Fourth, the five or so minutes of bonus outtakes at the end were worth it, if only to convince me that Jenny Lawson really is who the book makes her out to be. But I'm glad they were saved for the end, because if I had tried to play that drinking game, I would be dead. The only criticisms I have of the audio are that the narration sounds really unnatural when she's trying to read her footnotes, and that her voice sounds a bit like she's 13. Hearing someone who sounds 13 say the word Vagina that many times is just a little disconcerting at first. Even though it's been 2 days since I finished the book, I've heard the word Vagina so often that it still sounds like nonsense.

Okay, now I'm going to move on to the stuff that I didn't like. First off, keep in mind that I don't suffer from any kind of anxiety disorder, and don't have a lot of experience with it. Also, I don't have a vagina. I suspect that makes my reaction quite different from those who are coping with anxiety, or do have a vagina. The best way I can articulate the problem is that I felt like I was laughing at the author, not with her. Especially in the chapter when she was discussing anxiety disorder directly, I would find myself belly-laughing. Then I would stop, realize this is a serious problem, and wonder if I should really be laughing at it. But the writing is so funny that it sets you up to laugh, even if you suspect that you shouldn't. I ran into that discomfort repeatedly throughout the book, realizing that I was laughing at something serious (poor parenting, female issues, etc) that I had no experience with, and wondering if that made me an insensitive person. If you're a female with anxiety disorder, I doubt you'll have this reaction at all, though you could be totally offended.

My second problem with the book is that it seems to drag on far too long. By about the three quarter mark, I was getting ready for the end, but it never seemed to come! Some of the visits home could have been cut, or shortened, without really taking anything away from the book. They just felt like the same humour, repeated with only slightly different events. Once again though, this could have had something to do with how I read the book. Me and my girlfriend sat down to listen to the audiobook in two marathon sittings, and by half way through the second one, we were both thinking about what book we wanted to read together next. I suspect that if I had read each chapter in the context of a blog, at one chapter per day, I might not have had this problem. It might just be a case of Lawson overload. If you have the time and ability, I recommend pacing yourself, and reading only 1 or 2 chapters per day. I suspect it'll be funnier that way.