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A review by emmabeckman
Broken (in the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson
3.0
This one was interesting, but I had the same complaints as I did with Furiously Happy, and that one was just generally overall better. This one felt a bit too scattered for me. And it didn't feel like this one did anything that different from Furiously Happy other than being sort of an update on treatments she has had since then, and that made up only about three chapters of the whole book. I think I'm also personally just a bit over this ~*RaNdOm*~ humor style. I found almost nothing in this book laugh-out-loud funny. I wish it had been more focused. Anyway, I get that a lot of people struggling with mental health, especially depression and anxiety (hi), would find this book really relatable and uplifting. I just found it alright.
Also, related to it not feeling particularly new, this book really cannot stand by itself. You pretty much have to have read Furiously Happy AND follow Jenny Lawson (via social media) to ~get~ what's happening in here. Not a problem in and of itself, but it makes it so that this book really doesn't feel like it's creating something new.
Oh ALSO: it felt weird to me that this book didn't address the pandemic at all. So far in literature I've read, I haven't liked how the pandemic has been discussed, or I just really haven't cared to read about something I'm currently living in. But for some reason in this book, it felt conspicuously absent. I realize that a lot of this was probably written pre-pandemic, but then the way it was written, with references to "this year" that then showed her doing things that were sort of the antithesis of pandemic behavior made me feel especially confused about where in time we were. Plus, I feel like a book that is so focused on mental health from an author known for writing about mental health published as we entered year 2 of a global pandemic where so many people were struggling with their mental health... shouldn't it have addressed the pandemic? I don't know. Maybe other readers liked it so much specifically because it did NOT mention the pandemic. Personally, I wish it had.
Also, related to it not feeling particularly new, this book really cannot stand by itself. You pretty much have to have read Furiously Happy AND follow Jenny Lawson (via social media) to ~get~ what's happening in here. Not a problem in and of itself, but it makes it so that this book really doesn't feel like it's creating something new.
Oh ALSO: it felt weird to me that this book didn't address the pandemic at all. So far in literature I've read, I haven't liked how the pandemic has been discussed, or I just really haven't cared to read about something I'm currently living in. But for some reason in this book, it felt conspicuously absent. I realize that a lot of this was probably written pre-pandemic, but then the way it was written, with references to "this year" that then showed her doing things that were sort of the antithesis of pandemic behavior made me feel especially confused about where in time we were. Plus, I feel like a book that is so focused on mental health from an author known for writing about mental health published as we entered year 2 of a global pandemic where so many people were struggling with their mental health... shouldn't it have addressed the pandemic? I don't know. Maybe other readers liked it so much specifically because it did NOT mention the pandemic. Personally, I wish it had.