Broken (In the Best Possible Way) in Cannonball Readers

May 21, 2021 Ashley rated it really liked it

Shelves: a-cat-is-in-this, non-fiction, le-internets, memoir, humor, mental-health, addictive, read-for-book-club, read-harder-challenge-2021, a-dog-is-in-this

If you've read a Jenny Lawson book before, you'll know what to expect here. Side-splitting anecdotes, social anxiety, lots of animal stories, bizarre arguments with her husband Victor, talking openly about mental health issues like depression, etc. (She has treatment resistant depression and doesn't shy away from talking about her lowest moments, including feeling suicidal.) And yet this book feels light and very human.

Some notable departures in this one, she spends quite a bit of time reflecti If you've read a Jenny Lawson book before, you'll know what to expect here. Side-splitting anecdotes, social anxiety, lots of animal stories, bizarre arguments with her husband Victor, talking openly about mental health issues like depression, etc. (She has treatment resistant depression and doesn't shy away from talking about her lowest moments, including feeling suicidal.) And yet this book feels light and very human.

Some notable departures in this one, she spends quite a bit of time reflecting on the differences between hers and Victor's marriage as she's portrayed it over the years on her blog and in books, and what their marriage is like in real life. She takes care to say it's not all puppies and rainbows and strange arguments. They've had to work at their marriage, and she shares what that's been like, especially having to deal with mental health issues simultaneously.

She also wrote this heartbreaking letter to her insurance company that she includes in the book, and you find out a little later that she actually sent it to them as a desperate last move to get a treatment for her depression covered. Her struggles with them are infuriating. The biggest chapter in the book is actually her relating the experience of that resulting treatment, and its effects. That was probably the most interesting chapter in the book, even if it wasn't the funniest.

This book is best experienced in small does over several days, but this does pose a problem, because it is also compulsively readable. I would sit down with it and be like, just one more chapter, okay just one more after that, oh no last one. Shit. I read it basically in three long reading sessions.

I'm really here for Jenny Lawson's whole thing of bringing out our "brokenness" into the light, sharing it with other people, and building community in order to get through. I will confess that the reason this doesn't get five stars from me is that my personal tastes made it a little hard to get through the portions where she was being super earnest about What It All Means, and going on about things like that. I did skim a lot of that. But the rest of this is quality material, and I'm sure those parts will mean a lot to some people who have different tastes than mine.

Looking forward to discussing this one with my book club.

Read Harder Challenge 2021: Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness. ...more

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Apr 30, 2021 Malin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cbr13, all-my-books-2021, audiobook-2021, 52-books-in-52-weeks-2021, cbr13-bingo

4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Rep (features honest and sometimes graphic descriptions of life with a variety of mental and chronic illnesses)

It's no secret that Jenny Lawson, known online and to her followers as The Bloggess, suffers from a large number of ailments, both physical and mental. She has dealt with various kinds of chronic illness throughout her life and manages to be mostly very light-hearted and humourous about it.

I chose to get this book in audio, because Jenny Lawson narrates her own b 4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Rep (features honest and sometimes graphic descriptions of life with a variety of mental and chronic illnesses)

It's no secret that Jenny Lawson, known online and to her followers as The Bloggess, suffers from a large number of ailments, both physical and mental. She has dealt with various kinds of chronic illness throughout her life and manages to be mostly very light-hearted and humourous about it.

I chose to get this book in audio, because Jenny Lawson narrates her own books, and hearing her voice talk about all these frequently absurd, yet also occasionally absolutely heart-breaking things makes me feel closer to her. Due to the pandemic, this book was recorded in a closet in her house that she turned into a recording booth, which led to its own challenges, mainly that her cats didn't necessarily want to give her privacy while recording. At least a few places, the mews have been left in the finished book.

In contrast to her previous two books, I found this one a bit slow to get into. She also covers some really rather serious topics, and lets her readers in on some of the 'secrets' of a long-lasting and successful marriage, when one of the partners has as many health considerations as Ms. Lawson does. She is very honest about the tolls her depression takes on herself and those close to her, and one of the most affecting parts of the book is her open letter to her insurance company, literally begging them to fund essential life-improving treatments for her. As Ms. Lawson points out, in many cases, she's privileged enough to be able to afford some of them, but the vast majority of Americans cannot, and in a lot of cases, this can literally lead to deaths.

As I'm currently struggling with anxiety and depression as well, reading about Ms. Lawson's stuggles certainly puts things into perspective. My depression is (hopefully) a passing thing, which will get better with medication and therapy. I'm never going to have to resort to ketamine injections or transcranial magnetic stimulation to live a halfway normal life. Jenny Lawson has shared a lot of her life with readers already, not only on her blog, but in two previous memoirs, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir and Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things. Both are highly recommended. However, if you read either or both of these before, and they didn't appeal to you, this book won't either.

Judging a book by its cover: With her third book, Jenny Lawson wanted to do something different with the cover, and the very talented Omar Rayyan turned a photo where she's holding one of her many cats into this brilliant depiction of her and the monster that I think is supposed to symbolise her depression and/or chronic illness. Or possibly just the weirdness that is her life. Either way, I love it. ...more

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