My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster

My Fair Lazy : One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto

Jen Lancaster
New American Library
2010

Jen, if you happen to be reading this review, I heart you, and can we please be best friends?

For the rest of you who lovingly laugh at my stupid jokes and my inability to keep my mouth shut and not say the sarcastic thing I’m thinking about the moron across the room, please go read any of Jen Lancaster’s books.  Why?  For one, she writes like I talk (only much funnier).  But there are many reasons.

First, she is the master of the footnote.  After finishing my masters, I said something along the lines of “I never want to read another footnote or annotation again!”  But Lancaster taught me that footnotes can be fun!

Her sense of humor is sarcastic, pointed and, well, right.  She, like me, says the things the rest of you don’t want to say out loud but think.  She just gets paid for it.  I work for peanuts to “change the future”.  Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, but sarcasm and middle school students make a fire-y cocktail that usually ends in tears.  But more importantly, she’s real, and her humor is real.  Her books are not fantasy, they are not science fiction, and when you read her books, there is no suspense of reality.  She writes about things that happen to all of us: getting laid off, getting fat and learning that we know nothing.

My Fair Lazy is, as the title explains, a memoir about the quest to move from reality TV to real life.  In the book she realizes that while she is a wealth of TV and movie facts, but when it comes to literature, the theater or anything non-Jersey Shore related, she’s lost.  So she sets out to better herself and its hilarious every step of the way.  While Lancaster is able to find humor in just about every situation, she is also extremely real, and that’s what makes me love her even more.  When I read about her dog getting sick, I teared up and then laughed because she then described the dog’s stench in great detail.

What makes me love her even more is the fact that she realizes how little she knows about the world and chooses to do something about it, without losing who she is.  So many people think that reality TV is real, and…I hate to burst bubbles, but…it’s not.  Reality TV stopped being real before the turn of the century.  It’s still fun to watch, and might be mildly educational (the Amazing Race teaches us about geography and various cultures, and anything on MTV teaches us about drugs and contracting STDs), but to experience life you have to live it, not watch it.  In the end, Lancaster doesn’t become a know-it-all, nor does abandon her television habits.  She just becomes a more well-rounded person.  Which, in this case, is a good thing.  If you want to read about her quest to fight the “roundness” in her life, pick up Such a Pretty Fat.  It’s amazing.

Who would I recommend this book to?  It's difficult to recommend one of Jen's books.  But her books in general?  I'd recommend to anyone who has ever wanted to make a sarcastic remark and hasn't, anyone who has ever realized that they aren't actually perfect but are willing to come to terms with it, or anyone who wants a good belly laugh when they read, I'd highly recommend this book.  And truthfully, if you can get through one of her books without laughing, I will give you $100.

If you need short little doses of hilarity, check out her blog:
http://www.jennsylvania.com/
It too is quite awesome (though she's working on her newest book, so lately it's been a bit slow).