Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

 What can a taxidermied raccoon teach you about happiness?  Everything.  
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Furiously Happy is one of those books that just stays with you.  Jenny Lawson is a queen at humor, especially when it deals with the more difficult parts of life like anxiety, depression, and chronic illness.  The Bloggess, as she is fondly known on her blog and social media, finds a way to make all of the hard in life seem bearable, even comical. The cover of this one explains it all: this is a funny book about horrible things.  Lawson uses her own life experiences to make you laugh until you cry (like I literally did) at the absurdity of life.  I found myself highlighting whole pages and reading them aloud to anyone that would listen, regardless if they wanted to hear it or not.  The situations Lawson finds herself in are indeed outrageous, and I always found myself wanting just one more story.  She balances her anecdotes with humor and candor, which left me laughing and contemplative at the same time.  Wonder how that happens? Read more to find out. ​​

We all have battles in life; they are unavoidable.  Jenny Lawson chooses to be “furiously happy” about them (“out of sheer spite”). Lawson uses her experiences with anxiety, depression, and chronic illness to show readers just how possible it is to be happy in the midst of life’s hard.  This isn’t a self-help book.  Far from it, actually.  You won’t find steps to find happiness.  Instead, you’ll find episodes from Lawson’s life as a writer, blogger, mother, and wife; each one showing you how she has continued to be furiously happy.  This is a book full of wit and humor in the midst of life’s hard little moments that many of us can relate to.  Like the time when you tried to bring your taxidermied raccoon on a plane as a way to reduce your anxiety.
 
No? Just Lawson?  

Regardless, I found myself laughing out loud, which is a rare occurrence when I read a book.  I even re-read the book as an audiobook because I couldn’t get enough of Lawson’s wit.  She explains it best herself, that this book is “irreverent humor for intellectual misfits”.  In between her comical anecdotes about how anxiety puts her in interesting social situations, Lawson gives us a glimpse at how we can all be furiously happy in the midst of our own difficulties. ​

This is Lawson’s second book, which I picked up immediately after finishing her first, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. I first read Furiously Happy in a time when I was walking a dark path.  I was just beginning life with a chronic illness, which left me confused, angry, terrified, and depressed to say the least.  This book helped me realize that I could find light again when everything around me was dark.  

​Lawson challenges readers to choose their reaction to hardship.  Lawson helped me be brave enough to seek out the brighter days for myself, to choose to be furiously happy.  Regardless if you are or are not walking a dark path with illness, anxiety, or depression, this book has something for you.

To all who walk the dark path, and to those who walk in the sunshine but hold out a hand in the darkness to travel beside us: Brighter days are coming. Clearer sight will arrive. And you will arrive too.

We all get our share of tragedy or insanity or drama, but what we do with that horror is what makes all the difference.

TL/DR: Furiously Happy is a comical memoir about mental illness and finding joy in the absurdities in life. 
Rating: 5/5 stars