Little Weirds
'Magical . . . full of original observations and unexpected laughs' Mindy Kaling
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
'Magical' MINDY KALING
'Funny and poignant and beautiful' JOHN MULANEY
'It made me remember I was alive' GEORGE SAUNDERS
To see the world through Jenny Slate's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility. As she will remind you, we live on an ancient ball that rotates around a bigger ball made up of lights and gases that are science gases, not farts (don't be immature). Heartbreak, confusion and misogyny stalk this blue-green sphere, yes, but it is also a place of wild delight and unconstrained vitality, a place where we can start living as soon as we are born, and we can be born at any time. In her dazzling, impossible-to-categorize debut, Jenny channels the pain and beauty of life in writing so fresh, so new and so burstingly alive, we catch her vision like a fever and bring it back out into the bright day with us, and everything has changed.
'Delicious' AMY SEDARIS
'Slate invites us for a glorious swim inside her imagination as she explores romance, heartbreak and self-love in this poetry-memoir-fiction mash-up' PEOPLE
'I couldn't help but feel that it was written by a friend for me' VANITY FAIR
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an impossible-to-categorize adult debut, actor and comedian Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, coauthor) meditates on topics profound and ephemeral with wonder and stark honesty. The unaffectedly whimsical, direct tone is established quickly, with the opening piece's assertion that "I am actually a homemade Parisian Croissant," followed by the dictate, "Pair me with jam. Treasure me for my layers and layers of fragility and richness." Something of a personal narrative does emerge; she describes her childhood in hilarious pieces such as "Fast Bad Baby," about the troubles she inflicted on her mother by being "so rowdy and speedy." She ruminates on growing up in a haunted house in Massachusetts, and on leaving it knowing the ghost of her former self would always live there. She admits to debilitating self-doubt (and explains how she moved past it) and celebrates female friendships and self-care. The most moving piece, "I Died: Bronze Tree," the only work of (overt) fiction, unfolds from the perspective of a recently deceased old woman, whose death follows shortly after her husband's. Here, and elsewhere, Slate offers an intimate window into not only her mind, but her heart. The result is a dazzling, sensory gift for poetry lovers and fans of Slate's distinctly odd, but deeply charming humor.
