Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoire)

Author: Jenny Lawson
Genre: Memoire
Type: Hardcover
Source: Public Library
Pages: 318
Publisher: Amy Einhorn: Putnam
Publication Date: April 2012
First Line: "This book is totally true, except for the parts that aren't."

Book Description from GoodReads:  For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris—Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut.

Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In the #1 New York Times bestseller, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text.

My Review:  I picked up this book recently from my local library right before a job interview.  Trying to distract my nerves I sat there reading the book jacket I was quietly chuckling to myself and it honestly helped to reduce my nerves.  I like funny reads.  I do.  But I also feel that they're really hard to write well.  What is deemed "funny" means different things to different people and while I think that Jenny has a great sense of humour I don't necessarily think it came through well in this book.

There were some great, hilarious gems in this book but the overall feeling of chaos in her writing stifled those funny bits.  It felt very disjointed -- like you were talking to a overly caffeinated person who would shoot out random stories that didn't necessarily have anything to do with each other.  It often felt like she was just babbling and not caring about what she was talking about and after awhile that got frustrating.  And don't get me started about the overused and excessively annoying footnotes!  Gah!  Enough already! I know you're funny Jenny!  Show me!

Don't get me wrong, there were certain parts of stories where I did actually laugh out loud because Jenny is funny.  But then she'd take too long to get to the end of the story and start to lose me.  Or the story seemed much too unrealistic to be true and ... she'd start to lose me.  Overall, I guess I just felt really lost.  I read over half of the book before I finally called it quits because I just couldn't take any more of the rambling bedlam that is her memoire.

I think Jenny excels at writing funny little snippets (like on her blog, The Bloggess) but this full-fledged book didn't showcase her best comedic assets.  With better editing and a more polished feel I think this could have been amazing.  Unfortunately her frantic way of storytelling just isn't for me, I guess.  I'll stick to reading her blog.

My Rating: 0 (didn't finish it)