I’ve been around mental illness all my life, between, family, friends, boyfriends, room mates, and of course my job in the mental health profession for years, I’ve had a lot of experience with people with severe and persistent mental illness. I am going to say, just like with Then She Found Me, I have a personal relationship with mental illness. The “hilarity” of her circumstances began to feel more like a huge wall she was putting up to keep the reader at a distance, rather than a tool to let the reader in to get to know her. As the stories progressed I began to feel more and more uncomfortable. I was under the impression this would read more like a memoir, but it is in fact, short stories about things she’s thinking, or things that have happened in her world, her head, her life. I laughed out loud, loudly… more than once. Let me explain myself, as I feel like I’m truly in the minority when it comes to my opinion of this book. 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?

Jenny's first book, LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'' Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. '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. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.' My husband says that none is the new limit. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.Īccording 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. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. In her new book, FURIOUSLY HAPPY, Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. In LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, Jenny Lawson baffled readers with stories about growing up the daughter of a taxidermist. Published by Flatiron Books on September 22nd 2015 Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson I was really excited to read this book, I love Jenny’s blog, I think she’s hilarious, and I just knew I was going to love the book… but I didn’t. I waited, and waited to read this book, until the Word of the Week, for the Year of Words Book Challenge was Happy.

Furiously happy book