Saturday, January 2, 2016

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

In LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, Jenny Lawson baffled readers with stories about growing up the daughter of a taxidermist. In her new book, FURIOUSLY HAPPY, Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

According to Jenny: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos."

"Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'"

Jenny's first book, LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. FURIOUSLY HAPPY is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it's about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways-and who doesn't need a bit more of that?@goodreads


 MY REVIEW:


5 STARS 

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I thought this book was ↓

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I have to say I laughed a lot at her humor, I found that I say some of the things that she says. I feel for her that she has all of these disorders because I have most of the same disorders that she has but I have a few more, and not everyone feels the same when they have these disorders, they have different phobias. But it's all scary and a suckfest! And unfortunately, most people just think your having them on or you should just get over it... yeah, if it was only that simple.

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Now, that being said, I have had a good time with this book. I laughed so much and that is a good thing. There is one part in the book where she is talking about the Asian toilets, I have taken a picture to show the little picture in the book, hopefully you can see it and I'm going to add the excerpt from the book!
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------>EXCERPT<------

Here are a few of the buttons on the Japanese toilet:

I'm not entirely sure what these are all for but I think the top one that looks like a stick figure is to notify people that you've found the Blair Witch, and I think the next one means "Poop won't go down, Use your foot." I assume the orange button on the far left is for starting a war, and then there are two for washing your boobs for some reason, and then one about levitating on a fountain, and I think the last one is for ordering bacon? Frankly, I was too afraid to try out all of the buttons because just sitting on it triggered something that made it breakout into song. It was unsettling. Like, a pooping lullaby. Frankly, I think we've gone too far if you need someone to sing you to the toilet. In fact, I think the toilets were scarier than the whole rest of the trip, including our room being broken into by non-ninjas.




The author talks about many different things, her phobias, how her doctors react to her, (I have had that many a time!), funny things that she has done or not done or can't remember. It's just on and on and I love that she can joke and be funny while going through all of these things and be able to talk about them. And her husband... FANTASTIC MAN! Most men don't want to deal with women with mental disorders, actually I have friends and men that don't want to deal with it, and I'm guessing it's good I dropped dating before I want crazy :-)

Here is another excerpt from the book that she described about depression that I just loved because I have gotten the same thing.

------>Excerpt<------

I can tell you that "Just cheer up" is almost universally looked at as the most unhelpful depression cure ever. It's pretty much the equivalent of telling someone who just had their legs amputated to "just walk it off." Some people don't understand that for a lot of us, mental illness is a severe imbalance rather just having " a case of the Mondays." Those same well-meaning people will tell me that I'm keeping myself from recovering because I really "just need to cheer up and smile." That's when I consider chopping off their arms and then blaming them for not picking up their severed arms so they can take them to the hospital to get reattached.

Seriously, people say the dumbest things, but most mean well.....

Like I said, I thought this book was great and I would recommend to everyone, although not everyone will like it as much as I did. :-) You know opinions are like though!

And remember...


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FIN

GOODREADS REVIEW:

 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1334832864

AMAZON LINK TO THE BOOK:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250077001?keywords=furiously%20happy&qid=1451752850&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

4 comments:

  1. I've seen this book, but I didn't really know what it was about. This sounds really great. I need to read this one. Fantastic review as always!

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    1. Thank you Angel, I was sitting here thinking about not reviewing any more and you made my day. I seem to never have enough time on here or all the other place to interact with a lot of people. I'm trying to read so many books. I think you would like this book. I loved it so much. xo ♥

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  2. Another very popular book which many people think it does a very good job of displaying the mental illness that the main character has. I like the sound of that especially as well as the humor that the book has too.

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    1. Yes, she does so good being able to share her mental illness and give humor at the same time. I just loved to book so much :-)

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