Pink Saturday - 7/17/10 (My Fair Lazy Book Review)

Happy Pink Saturday everyone! I have been reading a ton of books lately (especially by the pool), so I have a ton of book reviews to share with everyone.

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I recently just finished the book My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster. I have read all of her books, she has 5 total, and I love them all. She is very fun, and very sarcastic. All of Lancaster’s books are memoirs, so they are supposed to be reflective of her life. I am sure there is some embellishment thrown in, but they are hilarious and you can only imagine some of this stuff happening to someone.

If you love reality tv, you will especially love the book My Fair Lazy. To give you a little background, in the first book Bitter is the New Black, Lancaster loses her dot.com job, and is unemployed for a very long time (maybe 1.5 years or something like that). Anyway, she ends up writing her first memoir about losing her job, and so now she is a successful writer, with a few books under her belt. Because she is now self-employed and likes to spend the majority of her time watching reality tv with her dogs and cats, she has found that she is having trouble socializing with people. She actually thinks that she has never been very good at this, but was successful enough in her past job (due to hard work, not her personality) that she never really noticed. She is finding that she is unable to carry meaningful conversations at dinner parties because she knows nothing about history, culture, politics, or really anything other than reality tv.

In order to overcome this, Lancaster starts on a journey of "Jenaissance" where she "attempts" to be more cultured (emphasis on attempts). While on her book tours, she again “attempts” to go to museums and try out different types of restaurants and sometimes she makes it, and sometimes things happen like good reality tv that keeps her in the hotel room (hey you can't always teach an old dog new tricks...not that I am saying she is an old dog...lol). She also starts attending dinner parties and operas with one of her good friends, which she finds out is a Chicago socialite and gets into tons of parties and gets free tickets all the time.

Of course this journey is full of mishaps, lots of sarcasm, with maybe just a little bit of bitterness thrown in. It’s a great book, but I highly suggest starting with the first book Bitter is the New Black and read them in order because each of the books do reference previous books. You could start with any of them, you won’t get lost, but to get the full effect, it’s best to read in order.

And if you want a daily dose of Lancaster, check out her blog Jennsylvania. You can get a taste of her writing style as well as a daily laugh fest.

For more info on Pink Saturday, please check out our lovely host Beverly.