Book Review
Title: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Rating: 5 Stars
It wasn’t that long ago I read Broken by Jenny Lawson and ended really loving it from her funny stories to her unflinching look at her own mental health so I was excited to pick up more by her. I had a few option for what book I picked up but in the end it had to be this one because of the cover, but I will be reading Furiously Happy at some point in the future. Unlike Broken which focuses on Lawson’s journey with her mental health, this memoir focuses on her childhood and from the very first page it was absolutely hilarious.
Lawson discusses how she knew she grew up in a very strange home environment from a young age with a father who was a keen hunter and taxidermist who often presents them with wild or dead animals as gifts. This strangeness seems to have led to a lack of self confidence in Jenny unlike her sister, Lisa. Jenny discusses many stories from her childhood including a dead squirrel puppet, Rambo the raccoon and the homicidal turkeys that her father kept as pets. Each one of these stories was hilarious enough to make me wheeze and cry, feeling like my ribs were breaking with each breath. I forgot how easy Lawson’s writing is to read and how relatable she is as a person.
Watching Lawson discuss her teenage and young adult life was something I could relate to and laugh at, at the same time. Reading her experience with anxiety, eating disorders, drug experimentation and dating we are so real and raw to the point where you could imagine yourself experiencing the exact same things in your mind. The way Lawson discusses peer pressure was something I also heavily related to since it’s not overt peer pressure. Jenny was always aware she didn’t fit in the way her sister did and while she tried making being alternative her personality she still longed for that connection which lead her to try drugs and this wasn’t a good move.
Being introduced to the long suffering husband in Victor despite having meet him before was amazing as we can see these two are definitely chalk and cheese but do work well together. Seeing their life from the time they started dating to their engagement and eventual marriage was great and filled with so much humour and passive aggressive post it notes. A lot of the things I found particularly funny about their relationship came from the most mundane situations like Victor constantly leaving wet towels on the floor and the argument that would come from that. Lawson does make a good point of pointing out how the class difference between her and Victor was a major source of anxiety early on in their relationship but they found ways to work with it than let it get between them.
Lawson then goes on to discuss her trouble with miscarriages which was heart-breaking to read as she loses two babies before conceiving their third. Lawson suffers with terrible anxiety throughout the pregnancy because of previous miscarriages, and I’m sure a lot of people can relate to this but she was overjoyed when their daughter, Hailey came into the world. Obviously, Jenny struggles with being a parent at first and who doesn’t at this point and shares some extremely funny insights like sometimes forgetting she even had a baby. Also, anytime Lawson mentions an argument between her and Victor it turns out to be the funniest thing I have read in years, which only makes me love these two more and the pictures definitely help the realism.
Throughout the book so far we have seen Jenny struggle with anxiety in many different situation but mostly social ones and I personally relate hard to that as someone who struggle with social anxiety. However, she realises that she doesn’t really have any female friends and sets out to change this as she begins to connect with other bloggers like herself, but this is all virtual. When they arrange to have a week away Jenny is obviously panic stricken but she does end going through with it, only to realise at the end she has made some good friends who is going to miss in their time apart. I think this is the situation for a lot of real life friendships where you don’t see yourselves as friends at first but it suddenly hits you how much you’re going to miss them when you’re apart.
As the book is beginning to draw to a close, Lawson doesn’t let up on the humour for one moment. Many of the jokes and stories feature poor Victor as he has to deal with the scatter brained Jenny all day now both work from home. Jenny recounts many stories of them getting under each other’s feet as they tried to work leading to some hilarious and petty moments between the pair of them. Many also feature Hailey especially after the family decide to move once more but back to a more rural area, so that Hailey might have some similar experiences to Jenny since they shaped the way she grew up. She also looks into her own health issues and dealing with chronic pain and arthritis at such a young age, and how this impacted her ability to work, parent and socialise although she wasn’t doing much of the last one even when she is well enough.
In the final section of the book, Jenny brings the book to a close with funniest and yet most light-hearted stories yet. The entire message of this book was growing up, falling in love and finding home is truly where the heart is. Jenny comes to realise all this in real time with the mundane, hilarious and stupid stories that accompany those events was so heartwarming that I have decided I will read anything this woman writes from now on. If you’ve ever dealt with things like getting married young, having kids, growing up poor or mental health issues then you’re genuinely going to connect with Lawson on so many levels the same way I did and I highly recommend this book to everyone even if you don’t like memoirs because this isn’t like any memoir I’ve ever read before.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Comments