Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

AKA A Funny Book About Horrible Things

Jenny Lawson is also known as The Bloggess. If you didn't find her with her blog or her first book (Let's Pretend This Never Happened) you need to find her with this book. You don't technically need a mental illness to appreciate this book, you could love someone with a mental illness or you could just be curious what all this depression this and anxiety that means. Jenny is here to help.

Suffering from depression and anxiety (along with several other illnesses) Jenny brings her incredible brand of humor to this book. Some of the things are pretty horrible, but she makes them funny. See how the subtitle works?

“What I want you to know: Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. Clinical depression is no fucking picnic.” 

This book consists of essays. Some hysterical and bizarre, some thought provoking, some "I thought I was the only one!". I have also been told by a medical person that I have depression. I feel it somewhat on a regular basis, when I'm down deep in the horrible dark well, but mostly I can still pull myself out and keep moving. I also have some anxiety, mostly in social arenas. People think I'm a bitch or cold, but honestly I have no idea how to talk to strangers. I panic and stop. I always thought it odd that I can handle giving presentations at work or elsewhere, but can't approach a stranger (or someone I know).

Jenny talked about this in one of her essays. Specifically how she is able to be terrified but still do book tours. One of the first "I thought I was the only one!" moments. She knows of what she speaks and she does so with profanity and great humor. Plus there's quite a bit of taxidermy.


Read her blog. Read her books. Listen to the audio because Jenny reads it and she is amazing at it.

“AWESOME. In fact, I’m starting a whole movement right now. The FURIOUSLY HAPPY movement. And it’s going to be awesome because first of all, we’re all going to be VEHEMENTLY happy, and secondly because it will freak the shit out of everyone that hates you because those assholes don’t want to see you even vaguely amused, much less furiously happy, and it will make their world turn a little sideways and will probably scare the shit out of them. Which will make you even more happy. Legitimately. Then the world tips in our favor. Us: 1. Assholes: 8,000,000. That score doesn’t look as satisfying as it should because they have a bit of a head start. Except you know what? Fuck that. We’re starting from scratch. Us: 1. Assholes: 0.”