Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir in Vampires, Weres and Fae!

Aug 12, 2020 Brittany rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, biography-memoir, humour

This book was mostly a train wreck. While it is probably more a 1.5-2 star book I am leaving it at 1 because of how badly it disappointed and frustrated me. I loved Jenny Lawson's second book Furiously Happy. This book though, was a disjointed mess. The title, Let's Pretend This Never Happened is quite apt as I wish I could forget having read most of it.
Much of this book follows the format of this, this and this happened but really most of that was made up. So much is exaggerated or fluff in thi This book was mostly a train wreck. While it is probably more a 1.5-2 star book I am leaving it at 1 because of how badly it disappointed and frustrated me. I loved Jenny Lawson's second book Furiously Happy. This book though, was a disjointed mess. The title, Let's Pretend This Never Happened is quite apt as I wish I could forget having read most of it.
Much of this book follows the format of this, this and this happened but really most of that was made up. So much is exaggerated or fluff in this book. But the worst part is how the author comes across. Yes she grew up poor but she treats the rest of her readers like they couldn't possibly understand any of this because they weren't poor like her. There are lots of people in the world without running water, or who use cisterns or who have wild animals for pets. This does not make you special and unique and it came across as she was superior because of it while complaining about everything. She also uses her mental illness as an excuse and nothing could ever be her fault, even when it is her setting something on fire. Everything is somebody else's doing. Victor comes across as a saint a lot of the time for dealing with her and her crazy antics. Also her comments about being unable to tell anybody who isn't white apart is quite racist and I know this was written 8 years ago in a different climate but some of what she says is not okay.
The story isn't all bad, there are hidden gems thrown in and those are what kept me reading through the disaster of the rest of it. Like the vagina stories, the dealing with pregnancy difficulties, and some of the general chaos of her life.
"I'd just run into my gynecologist at Starbucks and she totally looked right past me like she didn't even know me. And so I stood there wondering whether that's something she does on purpose to make her clients feel less uncomfortable, or whether she just genuinely didn't recognize me without my vagina. Either way, it's very disconcerting when people who've been inside your vagina don't acknowledge your existence. Also, I just want to clarify that I don't mean "without my vagina" like I didn't have it with me at the time. I just meant that I wasn't, you know... displaying it at Starbucks.
.....
So just to clarify, I always have my vagina on me. It's like my American Express card. (In that I don't leave home without it. Not that I use it to buy stuff with.)"

There are moments like this that meant something to me thrown in there. I completely understand that feeling of missing a place from another time that is no longer there anymore.
"Have you ever been homesick for someplace that doesn't actually exist anymore? Someplace that exists only in your mind? ... the memories of the places we'd been before were always more golden-tinted in retrospect than they had ever been at the time, and I nodded, surprised that he'd known more than he'd let on. He was right, but I didn't know if that made it better or worse. Was it better to be homesick for a time that was once home, but now lived only in your mind... or to be homesick for a place that never really existed at all?"

I cannot recommend this memoir to anyone, I am absolutely disappointed in it. As much as I enjoyed Furiously Happy I am not sure I will ever read anything else by Mrs. Lawson. ...more

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