Let’s Pretend This Never Happened- Book Review

Author Jenny Lawson is one of a kind and I don’t say that lightly. There is literally no one else like her.

When you read her new book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) you will see what I mean.

Who else has gotten their arm stuck shoulder deep up inside a cow’s vagina and lived to tell about it? Not David Sedaris or Tina Fey, those freakin’ hacks.

No, seriously, I adore Fey and Sedaris and he is the closest writer I can compare Ms. Lawson to, but instead of his hilarious dysfunctional family, Jenny’s family is bizarrely, hilariously, dysfunctionally…functional.

There’s something strangely touching about the bloody stories of taxidermy (her father’s hobby and profession) surrounding her childhood. Who else among us wore a “deer sweater” as a child, when the skin had just recently been on the deer itself? (I know, gross. But Jenny makes the weird and disgusting hilariously charming.)

If you are a reader or fan of her immensely popular blog, www.TheBloggess.com, you know the taxidermy theme has been carried into Jenny’s life with a zany cast of cute, loud, furry and dried out friends. I never liked taxidermy until I found Jenny’s blog, but someone she pulls you into her passion and glee for zombies and Shakespearean mice holding tiny skulls. In Jenny’s world, it all works together somehow, in a freaky yet addicting soup.

This book makes sense of all of that, as it completely brings us inside her meeting of her husband Victor, their courtship, wedding and marriage. Wait ’til you see the dress she wore!

There was a time I thought Jenny and Victor were a mismatch, but now I understand they are two of the most perfectly matched mismatched couples on the planet. It’s a long suffering, very romantic love story for our time. Or any time.

If Victor would just pick up the wet towels and appreciate giant metal chickens a bit more.

Seriously, there will not be a dry eye in the house when you read about Jenny’s infertility struggle to have her precious daughter Hailey.

To me, Jenny Lawson is not only a rare and brilliant writer, she is a courageous survivor, struggling with severe anxiety disorder, body image and food issues, infertility, depression and horrible bouts of painful arthritis attacks that cause her to be hospitalized.

How she keeps going with such a zest for life is a testament to her as a woman and as a human being, and it gives people like me hope of overcoming our own struggles and perilous personal mountains to climb.

But overall y’all, this book is just hilariously funny and f*cking entertaining. If you love Jenny’s conversations with Victor, you will find that here. You will also come to see as I have that working in the Human Resources department of a large company is one of the craziest, hysterical professions you could ever experience.

I had no idea so many men in offices see fit to email fellow co-workers pictures of their penises, and Jenny is the one who gets to question them about it. It’s even better than it sounds.

I’ll stop there because I want everyone to be able to discover this gem and all of the comedic treasures inside for themselves. Thank you Jenny Lawson for being only one of you, because if you were cloned I’m pretty sure you would take over the world in a nanosecond flat, and poor, stubborn Nathan Fillion would be suffocated by twine.

Come to think of it, somebody get on top of that cloning sh*t. There are horny cows out there who need a little arm action in their cooters, and Jenny Lawson is just the gal to do it!

I love you, gorgeous lady. Thank you for living.

XOXO-

~ Heidi