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Broken
304 pages
A wildly funny, deeply vulnerable plunge into the chaotic reality of living with severe mental illness.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like sitting with your funniest, most unhinged friend who is telling you their darkest secrets while making you laugh until you cry. The essays bounce at a brisk, unpredictable pace between profound vulnerability about severe depression and absurd tangents about taxidermy, rogue vacuum cleaners, or marital spats. The prose is a rapid-fire stream of consciousness that pulls you directly into a manic, brilliant mind, making the heavy subject matter surprisingly buoyant. It is a cathartic, chaotic ride that offers profound comfort to anyone who has ever felt fundamentally flawed, wrapping the exhausting realities of chronic mental illness in layers of irreverent, life-affirming comedy.
- Mood
- chaotic
- cathartic
- warm
- manic
- Tone
- irreverent
- vulnerable
- absurd
- darkly comedic
- candid
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- navigating mental illness · the absurdity of daily life · finding joy in brokenness · medical bureaucracy · marriage and endurance
- The writing
- Conversational and wildly tangential, featuring a rapid-fire stream of consciousness punctuated by sharp, laugh-out-loud punchlines.
- The arc
- Moves from the suffocating weight of severe depression through chaotic, hilarious coping mechanisms to a place of hard-won, messy acceptance.
- Who it's for
- Readers who use dark humor as a coping mechanism and appreciate unfiltered, chaotic honesty about mental health.
Content notes
- depression
- anxiety
- suicidal ideation
- medical trauma
About the book
"As Jenny Lawson's hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken (in the best possible way), she explores her experimental treatment of transcranial magnetic stimulation with brutal honesty. But also with brutal humor: "People do different things to distract themselves during each treatment. I embroider. It feels fitting. I'm being magnetically stabbed in the head thousands of times as I'm stabbing the embroidery myself. I don't embroider the same patterns my grandmother did. I embroider girls with octopus faces, David Bowie, a flowery bouquet with FUCK YES written in the middle. They let you do anything as long as it's 'positive.'" Jenny discusses the frustration of dealing with her insurance company in "An Open Letter to My Insurance Company," which should be an anthem for anyone who has ever had to call their insurance company to try and get a claim covered. On the lighter side, she tackles such timelessly debated questions as "How do dogs know they have penises?" We see how her vacuum cleaner almost set her house on fire, how she was attacked by three bears, business ideas she wants to pitch to Shark Tank, and why she can never go back to the post office. Of course, Jenny's long-suffering husband Victor-the Ricky to Jenny's Lucille Ball-is present throughout. A treat for Jenny Lawson's already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter"--
Description from Open Library.
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