So I just finished listening to the audiobook of Jenny Lawson's first memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir.* I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this memoir, but first, an important fact about it: the cover features a taxidermied white mouse standing on its hind legs and wearing a cape and Elizabethan neck ruff, so if that scares you off, this probably isn't the book for you (although I'd still suggest giving it a try anyway because it's always good to expand your horizons). What can I even say about Let's Pretend This Never Happened? It's mainly hilarious (especially in the audio version, which features great sound effects (cow bells, staplers, crying babies, etc.) when appropriate and also because Lawson reads it herself, singing the title of each chapter). Right, so Let's Pretend This Never Happened is definitely humorous, but it also offers up a nice balance of more reflective moments--it's not just Lawson mindlessly poking fun at herself or her childhood and family life. (The key word in that last sentence was mindlessly--there's plenty of fun-poking, but never really just for its own sake.) This memoir ranges from Lawson's childhood to her adult life (up till the time she wrote it, obviously, it's not like she tries to write a memoir of her future life, though if anyone could pull it off, it might be her), covering topics from taxidermy (duh) to her anxiety disorder to her time working in HR (hilarious!) to her attempt at being goth as a high schooler in rural, small-town Texas. Basically, there's something for everyone in here! But it's especially for you if you like memoirs of people with interesting daily lives, or humorous personal essays, or people who write with a really original voice.
>>Read alike: If you enjoy reading David Sedaris, definitely try Let's Pretend This Never Happened.
*You can find my thoughts about her second memoir, Furiously Happy, in a December 2015 post on this blog. Her next book, You Are Here: An Owner's Manual for Dangerous Minds is coming out this fall, and I'm already on the waitlist at the library for it, so look for a future Jenny Lawson post, too.
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