Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

(A Mostly True Memoir)
By Jenny Lawson

Jenny Lawson is the Bloggess.  She had a somewhat… unusual childhood.  Usually when people hear that her father was a taxidermist they begin to get an inkling of what she means, but it goes beyond that. 

Like the time that Jenny brought her fiancé Victor home to meet her parents and her father snuck into the room and tossed a young bobcat on his lap, saying, “Hellooooo, Victor.”  Now, most people might think that was an extreme way for a father to try to intimidate a suitor but, the truth is, her father would have been just as likely to toss the bobcat on Jenny or her mother. 

Some strange things happen to Jenny but it’s also her take on them and her story telling ability that make her story so fascinating. 

“Did you notice how, like, half of this introduction was a rambling parenthetical?  That shit is going to happen all the time.”  And it does.  In fact, I can’t decide whether this book is more like one, long, run on, stand-up comedienne monologue or more like you’re trapped in a corner at a party with a woman who is hysterically telling you everything insane that has happened in her life in an effort to explain why she is drinking too much.   

In between the mile-a-minute speedball vignettes are some more poignant thoughts -  “When you’re surrounded by other people who are just as poor as you are, life doesn’t seem all that weird… I never really realized we were that poor, because my parents never said we couldn’t afford things, just that we didn’t need them.”

Jenny has been diagnosed with some ailments that she has turned to her advantage, in some ways, including OCD, depression and anxiety disorder.  “It’s like I have a censor in my head, but she works on a seven-second delay… well-meaning, but perpetually about seven seconds too late to actually do anything to stop the horrific avalanche of shit-you-shouldn’t-say-out-loud-but-I-just-did.”

Admittedly, if swearing offends you, this book isn’t for you.  But, everybody else who can follow this ramble will laugh hysterically (or at least chuckle out loud occasionally.)  I enjoyed it a lot!