Furiously Happy

I came across The Bloggess many years ago. Her blog is hilarious and compassionate. She has a multitude of chronic illnesses, running the gamut from depression to arthritis. Her writing is a blend of dark humor and the wacky shenanigans she finds herself in, with a dash of brutal honesty thrown in. She's always funny and occasionally heart-breaking.

I enjoyed her first book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, which is a more straight-forward memoir about her crazy life and offbeat upbringing, which instilled in her an appreciation for strange taxidermy, among other things. Her second book is more like a collection of her blog entries, in handy portable form. (Though I suppose her blog is pretty portable, what with current technology. But this is like the greatest hits.)

I didn't like this book quite as much as her first one. It still made me laugh, though I wasn't literally laughing out loud as frequently, or shaking while I tried not to laugh. It was funny and amusing and a good way to pass the time. But parts of it felt a bit repetitive, too. I stopped reading her blog a few years back, mostly because I gradually lost interest in her style, so this book was maybe not really for me. But it was quick and cheap and didn't require too much brain power, which is definitely a win these days.

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