Reviews

Truth is Stranger

KELSEA O'CONNOR

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson, a.k.a. The Bloggess (Amy Einhorn/Putnam) is a hilarious look into the life of a woman who can find humour even in her own embarrassments. Lawson recounts the memorable and the “terribly human moments” in her life, from growing up in poverty in rural Texas with a taxidermist father, to her struggle with mental and physical illness, to hilarious misunderstandings with her husband and colleagues.

The stories range from the poignant (the realization of loss when her hometown no longer feels like home) to the disturbing (the time Lawson briefly, accidentally, wore a dead deer as a sweater). To prove that her stories are not made up, she has corroborated many episodes with photographs. Read this book for the bizarre situations Lawson has gotten herself into, like fighting off vultures with a machete in order to protect her dead dog. Or read it for the chapter titles: “And That’s Why Neil Patrick Harris Would Be the Most Successful Mass Murderer Ever,” “Thanks for the Zombies, Jesus,” “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.”

But most of all, read this book and think, thank god that didn’t happen to me!

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KELSEA O'CONNOR

Kelsea O’Connor is contributing editor to Geist. She lives in New Westminster.


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