Author Review: Jen Lancaster

A few years back a co-worker of mine, Emilie, was telling me about this author she loved and suggesting I check out her books. At the time that author had three books on the shelves and I had 8 billion books on my to read list.

No really. 8 billion. Check out my list on Goodreads if you don't believe me.

I vividly remember her telling me not to read the first book first since that will probably turn me off but read the second book then go back to the first book. I completely lost interested and promptly forgot the name of the author.

Fast forward 6 to 8 months later. I am in Barnes and Noble near my house browsing the shelves. It's not that I want my list to grow past 8 billion books to read, it's just that I love book stores so much!

So, in typical Kara fashion, I pick up four or five new books mostly based on their cover. This is harder now that I read on my kindle but yes, I do judge a book by it's cover. But one of my life rules is "Never judge a girl by what she is reading, simply celebrate the fact she is reading at all."

I begin reading a book called "Bitter is the New Black" and I am hooked on the first sentence. "Camille said you stole a bag from a homeless guy."

I tore through Bitter on a work trip and found myself in the Dayton, OH Barnes and Noble looking for Jen Lancaster's second book "Bright Lights, Big Ass" for the flight home.

These two books have me in stitches my entire trip. Everyone both of they flights thought I was insane as I held in my laughter which just caused me to make strange snorting noises and silently shake in my seat.

Laughing out loud in the hotel room made my trip much more enjoyable and mostly made me forget I was away from my family for three days.

When I returned to my home office I ran into Emilie's cube to tell her all about this crazy, mean, absolutely hilarious woman who has written a series of memoirs about how crazy and mean she is. I insisted she read them right away as she sat there looking at me like I was an total idiot.

When I finally stopped blabbering on about how quickly Emilie needs to read these books because her life is not fulfilled until she has read them, she gently explains to me that not only has she read all of Jen's books and follows her blog, this is the author she was trying to get me to read almost a year ago when I told her I simply was not interested.

Emilie is very, very nice and completely resists the urge to tell me I am an idiot and hand me a big "I told you so!" Instead she simply sent me a link to Jen's blog and suggested I check it out.

Since this all went down Jen's has published and I have read/purchased four more memoirs, making her memoir total six, one novel, and one highly successful blog.  Not to mention the columns she wrote for TMS Humor Hotel and all the interviews she participated, it's not hard to get a regular fix of Jen.

In June of 2009 when Pretty In Plaid hit the shelves Jen made an appearance at a local Boarders. Of course Emilie and I were all over that!

I even dressed like Jen!

To make me love her even more than I already do, her books are typically published in early May making them the perfect birthday present to myself! 

This year I preordered Jeneration X, her newest memoir so it would be on my Kindle as soon as I turned it on May 1st. I freed up my reading schedule so I would be ready for it first thing the morning it was released.

Jen promised she was bitchier in this book, much more like Bitter than the other four, and she did not fail on that promise. Within the first pages I already knew I would shaking my head, rolling my eyes, uttering the phrase "Oh, Jen, you didn't" over and over again, snorting, laughing, crying, peeing my pants, and gasping for breath through the entire book.

Let me tell you. I was not at all disappointed. Keep up the good work, Jen.