With Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson expands on the persona she's honed on her popular website The Bloggess while crafting a narrative that's entirely accessible to new readers, with a flair for comic exaggeration that will induce laughing and cringing in equal measure. While some of the material in the book may be familiar to Lawson's online readers, much of it consists of stories she hasn't shared before: Lawson's rural West Texas childhood, with her dad's backyard taxidermy shop; how she met and married the famously long-suffering Victor; her rather unlikely career in human resources with a faith-based organization; and her ultimate decision that her daughter deserved a crazy country childhood, too.
Lawson elaborates on the ways that the Internet has helped her deal with her nearly crippling social anxiety and sense of inappropriateness; the chapter "Making Friends with Girls" is certain to connect with her core audience, but will resonate with anyone who's struggled with fitting in.This condition probably means that Lawson would never have had a career in stand-up comedy, but the stage's loss is the literary world's gain. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness