Furiously Happy is hilarious, fast paced, sad and sometimes exhausting to read. Often you are feeling one more of these emotions at once. I suspect this is sometimes what it’s like to be Jenny Lawson, a well known blogger who has written frankly about her struggles with mental illness. The title is inspired by a blog post Ms. Lawson made when she was in the depths of depression in which she vowed to be “furiously happy” during the times her brain wasn’t trying to kill her.
I have never battled severe mental or physical illness. I’ve lucked into relatively good health despite some stunningly bad life choices. Still, I found Furiously Happy eminently relatable. All of us have been tripped up by our own brain before. All of us have dark places we go in our own head sometimes. And all of us sometimes feel as if we’re just faking being adults and will be discovered and called out for the imposter that we are at any moment. (Right…guys?)
I have not read Jenny Lawson’s first book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. In fact, that book was actually on my To Be Read list when this one showed up on Kindle for $1.99. Let’s Pretend is now being moved up in priority. So…I may get it read some time in the next year.