Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
by Jenny Lawson
Pages: 8
Published by Macmillan Audio
Publication Date September 22, 2015
Goodreads

For fans of David Sedaris, Tina Fey, and Mindy Kaling-the new book from Jenny Lawson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED...

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?

Three things I learned from Furiously Happy

• Judge time based on before and after Kirk Cameron went crazy
• You can never have too much cowbell
• Normal is boring.  Weird is better.  Goats are awesome.
• Choose to live furiously happy

 

No one is prepared for their first time nor do they ever forget it. That is how I felt listening to Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. I devoured this book in two days and was laughing out loud through most of it. Jenny has a unique, honest sense of humor that I took to immediately. Her frank, from-the-heart words on mental illness she encourages others to you do you and wave your crazy flag. Furiously Happy was enhanced by the author narrating the book, she has a great delivery which was probably in part, why I was laughing out loud. Furiously Happy is hilarious, inappropriate and real. Overall, it is brilliant.