making it weird for the win
Jenny Lawson has a history of making it weird. Readers of her previous books or her blog will be familiar with her stories of beloved creatures with punny names, family love, chronic illness, and what sounds like an unusually large collection of taxidermied animals. She has written several New York Times bestselling books and owns a bookshop in Austin, Texas. And now she’s offering up help for us all.
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay is her first self-help book, and it is spectacular. It’s a series of short chapters organized into sections, so you can read the book from start to finish, or you can just pick out the section or the chapter that will help you the most. There are plenty of Lawson’s usual wacky stories, but there are also lots of quotes and several of her drawings as well as tested techniques for helping with those days where nothing feels quite right.
Are you struggling with anxiety? She tells what’s worked for her (as well as some things that didn’t work for her, but might work for you). Do you need help with self-care? She has ideas, like using hair scrunchies to keep track of tasks. Do you have writer’s block? Depression? Imposter’s syndrome? She’s been there too. She understands how hard it can be to start your next creative project. She too has those days where it seems like too much to get out of bed. She understands, she’s sought advice from professionals and friends, and she’s sharing her best tips so the rest of us can move forward too, even if it’s really slow.
Most of her advice focuses on one thing: getting the most out of life. She wants her readers to be happy. She wants us to be creative and productive. She wants us to remember to drink water and to try new things and take small steps toward our dreams. She talks about grief bacon and taking space and rotating your crops and going into airplane mode. She understands that sometimes it takes a minute of buffering to be able to react. She knows how to fight the brain weasels. And she knows that animals are the best for comfort and healing (but, obviously, not the brain weasels).
I read How to Be Okay When You’re Not Okay all the way through, but I know that it will live in a space where I can grab it easily and read a chapter or two when I need it. I struggle with anxiety. I struggle to put words on the page. I feel comforted and encouraged by this book, and I will return to it in difficult moments or times when I need a good laugh, because this book is hilarious. This the kind of book that I want to give to my friends who are creative or who are experiencing a difficult time, but as soon as I give my copy away, I’ll have to buy myself another one. This is a reference to keep near and dear to my heart and my hands.
Egalleys for How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay were provided by Penguin Life through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
