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

by Jenny Lawson

Even when I was funny, I wasn't this funny'
Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors

Have you ever embarrassed yourself so badly you thought you'd never get over it?

Have you ever wished your family could be just like everyone else's?

Have you ever been followed to school by your father's herd of turkeys, mistaken a marriage proposal for an attempted murder or got your arm stuck inside a cow? OK, maybe that's just Jenny Lawson . . .

The bestselling memoir from one of America's most outlandishly hilarious writers.

• ISBN10: 1101573082
• ISBN13: 9781101573082
• Publish Date: 1 April 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Penguin Group USA, Inc
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

I think there’s a goat in our house,” my sister says, making no attempt to get up as she turns her head slightly to listen to the strange noises coming from down the hall. She’s wrong; I’m certain. Not because there couldn’t be a goat in the house, but because this isn’t our house anymore. It’s the home we grew up in, and still feels warm and familiar, but I’ve managed to disassociate myself from being responsible for shooing errant goats out of a home I haven’t lived in for more than a decade.

Another victim of the reading slump.

I like Jenny Lawson's blog posts - well, some more than others - but I got annoyed with the book. While her exaggerated style woks fine for me in short bursts, a whole book of it just drove me nuts.

I don't deal well with people who make everything into a drama and who need to talk about everything as if it needed amplification, and the narrative style in this book was all about the dramatic exaggeration.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

I’ll be honest, I had no clue who Jenny Lawson was when I attended her Out Loud! Author Event in my hometown in July. I was just instructed by a friend that I had to attend. So I did because I’m old and have nothing better to do on a Friday night.

During the event I fell in love with Jenny and her forward style of speaking. And I was happy to discover, as I read Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, that her speaking style matched her writing style.

I enjoyed the easy to read, lighthearted style of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. And while my childhood was not a crazy as Jenny’s, I was able to identify with her life living on the outskirts of town with a sister. (I know EXACTLY what a rendering plant smells like.)

Jenny’s memoir is a great non-fiction jumping off point for the reluctant non-fiction reader. Her writing is accessible and even in some the darker moments of her life, she is able to find the humor, making the memoir an uplifting read from start to finish.


This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews

[elvinagb]

Jenny is totally nuts, which in this case is is amazing as is this book. What a great read, I actually laughed out loud many times.

[Stephanie]

I listened to the audiobook version and it was amazingly awesome. Seriously, Jenny Lawson does so well narrating her own book. She made me laugh at inappropriate times and even brought tears to my eyes more than once. I also spent a great amount of time afterwards using great variations of the "f" word. :)