Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

· Flatiron Books
4.7
349 reviews
Ebook
352
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

In Furiously Happy, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea.

But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

As Jenny says:

"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.'"

Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. It's the difference between "surviving life" and "living life". It's the difference between "taking a shower" and "teaching your monkey butler how to shampoo your hair." It's the difference between being "sane" and being "furiously happy."

Lawson is beloved around the world for her inimitable humor and honesty, and in Furiously Happy, she is at her snort-inducing funniest. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed - and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. Because as Jenny's mom says, "Maybe 'crazy' isn't so bad after all." Sometimes crazy is just right.

Ratings and reviews

4.7
349 reviews
Glen S
February 23, 2016
The book was truly a slog. To summarize the book: A full-time blogger with a host of bizarre habits makes a point of hyperbolizing everything in an attempt to deal with her emotional life. In the process she makes patently false statements about people with mental health issues, and mocks people who give her good advice. Highlights of the book include an entire chapter about her waking up with an arm being asleep, rolling out of bed, and deciding that this would make a fantastic book chapter (yes, she spends a large chunk of a chapter talking about what a great chapter it is). Avoid this book.
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Phyllis Minieri
June 22, 2016
I'm not a prude but I hated here langage, and nothing seemed to make sense to me. I will not read her books anymore. I didn't even finish this one. What a waste of money. Wish I could get a refund.
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Sandi Denman
August 3, 2018
We read this for our book club and a few of us agreed that the author thinks she is a lot funnier than we think. Maybe you need to be a fan of her blog to enjoy her, but we were put off by her. Not a good read at all.
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About the author

JENNY LAWSON, The Bloggess, is an award-winning humor writer known for her great candor in sharing her struggle with depression and mental illness. Her memoirs, Let's Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy, were #1 New York Times bestsellers.

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