Teaser Tuesday [9]

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: grab your current read; open to a random page; share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page; BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!); and share the title & author, too, so that other people can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

 Furiously Happy

A Funny Book About Horrible Things

by: Jenny Lawson

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?

my teaser

          I wasn't the only one with sleep problems, as Victor had been talking in his sleep since he was a kid. When he was eight he was traveling with his dad and sat up in a darkened hotel room at two a.m., opened his eyes, and raised his arm to point toward the dark hall, saying, "Who's that man standing in the corner?" Then he lay back down and went straight back to sleep while his father quietly shit himself. Metaphorically. Probably.

          A few weeks ago Victor woke himself up yelling, "LADY. YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER. OUR CAT ISN'T EVEN IN THE HOSPITAL. HE DOESN'T WANT PAJAMAS." Poor, Victor. Even in sleep he's plagued by assholes.

What's your teaser?