What I've Heard- This is How it Always Is

I waited to listen to This Is How it Always Is because I wanted to have some distance from the story and hopefully enjoy it anew. That strategy worked wonderfully well. I love this book so much and I was able to enjoy the sweet, funny moments as if I hadn't heard them before. The magic in the characters is so special. The mixture of fairy tale and truth is perfectly swirled together.

This was the best book I read in 2019 and I stand by that assessment. I will definitely listen to this one again. I hope you'll add it to your list.

 

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson

Okay, for reals, if you haven't read Jenny Lawson yet you need to do it NOW! Start with Let's Pretend This Never Happened and then read Furiously Happy. You'll be very glad that you did. Once you've finished those you'll be ready for Broken (in the best possible way). With her first book, Jenny mostly tells hilarious stories that very well may make you wet yourself. With her second book, she gets a little more frank about her mental illness, but in a way that still makes you laugh. 

With this most recent offering, Jenny, still funny, still mentally ill, pulls the curtain back even further. We witness her struggles with the health insurance companies that deny her the treatments that could make her life better or very possibly save it. It is heartbreaking, but Jenny makes it very clear that she has a much easier time of it than so many others. She has the ability to pay for the medications that her doctor says she needs and her insurance company says she doesn't. And really, who's to say which of those two entities really knows better. (It's the doctor. The doctor is the one who is better at deciding what she needs. That shouldn't even be a question, should it?)

She also gives a wonderful list of possible things that can help when one is in the grips of mental illness. It is a chapter entitled The Things We Do to Quiet the Monsters and it is wonderful. And I don't just say that because number nine on her list is Watch Doctor Who. I can't even remember how many times I've watched through that gift of a series, but it always makes me feel better. Life is stressful and Doctor Who makes it a little better. There are sad parts, but it is full of light and the darkness never wins, not in the end. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it, but I digress...

There are so many remarkable moments in this book, but the chapter called Awkwarding Brings Us Together was possibly my favorite. I laughed until literal tears were streaming down my face. It took me seven solid minutes to read one tiny paragraph to my husband because I could not get it out without cracking up. Jenny ends the chapter with this, which was just so accurate it was scary:

If you have managed to read these wonderful confessions without doing that thing where you're giggling so much people are staring and so you try to explain to them what's so funny but you're cry-laughing so hard that you can't get it out and they just stare at you like you're insane and that somehow makes it worse and so you laugh harder and then you get mad that they aren't appreciating how fantastically wonderful it all is, then we can't be friends, and honestly, I'm a little embarrassed for you.

Jenny Lawson is the most raw and real, honest and genuine writer I've ever read. There are others who try to imitate her special magic, but none come even close, though I am grateful for the way she has inspired others to share their truth. I love Jenny Lawson and I hope you do, too. If you haven't read her books yet, I really wish you would. And I also highly recommend her audiobooks. She reads them and her own voice makes the stories that much better. I can't wait to hear Broken. 

 

The Love Proof by Madeleine Henry

Can love transcend time? In Love Proof by Madeleine Henry, Sophie thinks so. A certified genius with a personalized education plan at Yale, Sophie is determined to make a breakthrough in the study of time. She meets Jake on her first day and they quickly become inseparable. Equally driven, he spends his four years of college in awe of her talent and intellect. Upon graduation, reality dawns and they are pulled apart. Or are they?

I really loved the first half of this book. I was fascinated by all the theory and scientific discussion. Unfortunately, it was ruined when one character makes a choice for the other for their own good. I hate it when characters, or people, do that. The result is one kind of success, but a great loss of another kind. I'm trying not to spoil the story for you in case you would like to read it yourself. The Goodreads rating is nearly four stars and the reviews are full of praise, but I was disappointed.

I loved how brilliant Sophie is. Smart women, especially geniuses on the verge of scientific discovery, really appeal to me. I have no problem with a character like that who is maybe a bit naïve with other more practical things in life, but this went too far. Sophie has no agency or strength of her own. It felt weak and that made me sad.