Jenny Slate

I'm familiar with Jenny Slate mainly as the creator and voice of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. I also tend to conflate her with Jenny Lawson (after reading this, I think the two Jennys would get along). So that was my knowledge heading into reading this autobiographical series of essays. Slate employs a creative prose style - sometimes stream-of-consciousness, sometimes dreamlike - that I enjoy to write about her life and ideas. Topics include growing up in a haunted house, divorce and looking for love, patriarchy, travel to Norway, animals, and death - so much death. It is - in fact - a little weird. Although I enjoyed the book's style I often wasn't all to interested in the content. Nevertheless, I still would liked it enough to want to check out Slate's movies, stand-up comedy shows, et al.… (meer)

It's challenging to describe this book. If you are looking for a laugh out loud slap-your-leg romp of a read, this isn't it. Instead, this is a collection of vignettes that I'd say are much more literary than I anticipated, infused with Jenny Slate's totally original, quirky view of herself and the world. I really loved it. Here is a line that particularly resonated for me: "As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love."
Keep writing, Jenny!!!… (meer)

Seeing the title, I can't really complain that this was weird.

This series of essays is sometimes stream of consciousness, sometimes almost-stories, always just "off" enough to be charming.

I listened to the audio, narrated by the author. I tend to think the author conveys their intentions when they narrate their own audio books, in which case the author's "deep thoughts" pace and tone really colored my perception of her writing in a very negative way. Speeding up the audio was the only way to get the words without the author's self-centeredness.

So 5 stars for the writing which is beautiful. 1 star for the author's narration - maybe not fair but she really should consider having someone else narrate future books. So I arrive at a rating of 3.… (meer)