Jenny Lawson's New Book 'Broken' Shows the Power of Connection

Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) is back with a new book to accompany her wildly successful “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” and “Furiously Happy,” plus the coloring book that I can never remember the name of.

Her new book, “Broken (in the best possible way),” which debuted at number three in the New York Times, takes Jenny’s weird and out-of-the-ordinary sense of humor and adds more laughs, as well as more serious material.

I haven’t counted how often she talks about vaginas and “lady gardens,” but I bet someone will. And f-bombs abound. (Hardly surprising, since the most requested way for her to sign books is “Knock, knock, motherfucker!”)

Note: If you’re at all a sensitive soul or offended by certain types of language, steer clear of the chapter on “Business Ideas to Pitch on Shark Tank.” It’s raunchy even by Bloggess standards, which means it’s beyond simply raunchy. Of course, if you were a sensitive soul who objected to certain types of language, you probably wouldn’t have picked up this book in the first place.

Jenny’s previous book, “Furiously Happy,” dealt a lot with struggles against depression and anxiety – Jenny’s own and other people’s. The new book goes into those subjects in more depth, including a personal narrative of using TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to deal with her treatment-resistant depression. There’s even a picture of her using the device.

She also reveals her own “really serious and raw stuff” – experiences with avoidant personality disorder, imposter syndrome, ADD, OCD, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. So be ready for a bumpy ride.

There are also sweet, sad, funny chapters about her family, and especially how they are dealing with her grandmother’s dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

And there are chapters that are not sweet, funny or sad, where she rails against insurance companies and their unhelpful (to say the least) ways. These chapters and passages, I am certain, nearly every reader will identify and agree with.

And, lest you think this is a complete departure from Jenny’s funny stories, rest assured there is plenty of what Jenny herself calls her “baffling wordsmithery,” including times she lost shoes while wearing them, dog penises and condoms, attic vampires, arguments with her husband Victor, embarrassing moments shared with other people (those who inadvertently say IUD when they really mean IED, for example), roller skating monkeys, dubious beauty treatments, the perils of being an editor, the perils of cooking and cleaning, taxidermy (of course) and high school proms.

As for the title, a broken lawn ornament (not Beyoncé the chicken, thank goodness) leads Victor to explain the Japanese concept of kintsugi. According to this practice, philosophy or art form, broken ceramic items such as vases or teacups are repaired with a fixative mixed with gold powder, which creates something new, stronger, more artistic – and beautiful at the broken places, a theme which runs throughout the book.

What sets Jenny’s books apart from other humor books and from other books on serious illness, especially serious mental illness, is her ability to connect – both readers to herself and readers to each other. Her humorous chapters are over-the-top funny and many evoke a sense of “Yes! Me too! That could/did happen to me!” Jenny even includes instances when people have shared their own stories of faux-pas with her and by extension, with all her readers.

Her serious chapters are educational, descriptive and occasionally searing. She tackles tough topics with fortitude and forthrightness, educating as well as illuminating. Far from being a textbook on serious mental illness and chronic illnesses, though, her stories bare the truth and present the subjects powerfully. They give hope and understanding as well as connection.

Connection. That’s Jenny Lawson’s superpower.