Such a Pretty Fat

Such a Pretty Fat:  One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big; Or, Why Pie Is Not the Answer

Are you tired of books where the self-loathing heroine is teased to the point where she starves herself tiny in hopes of a fabulous new life?  Do you hate the message that we women can't possibly be happy until we fit into our skinny jeans? 

Yeah?  Well, Jen Lancaster is, too. 

Jen doesn't find stories like this uplifting; rather, they make her want to hug these women and take them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don't matter.

Unfortunately, being overweight isn't simply a societal issue that can be fixed with a dose of positive self-esteem.  It's a health matter, so on the eve of Jen's 40th birthday she decides to make changes so she doesn't, you know, die.  Because what good is finally being able to afford a pedicure if she loses a foot to adult onset diabetes?

http://www.jennsylvania.com/jennsylvania/books.html

Bright Lights, Big Ass

Bright Lights, Big Ass:  A Self-Indulgent, Surly Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why it Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are All These Idiots and Why Do They Live Next Door to Me?

From the rollicking bestselling author of Bitter Is the New Black comes a brand-new collection of essays that shine a bright light on the big city to reveal the escapades of the outrageously unglamorous.

Jen Lancaster hates to burst your happy little bubble, but life in the big city isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies, most urbanites aren't party-hopping in slinky dresses and strappy stilettos.  But lucky for us, Lancaster knows how to make the life of the lower crust mercilessly funny and infinitely entertaining.

Whether she's reporting rude neighbors to Homeland Security, harboring a crush on her grocery store, or fighting -and losing - the Battle of the Stairmaster, Lancaster explores how silly, strange, and not so fabulous real city living can be.  And if anyone doesn't like it, they can kiss her big, fat, pink, puffy down parka.

http://www.jennsylvania.com/jennsylvania/books.html

Pretty in Plaid

Pretty In Plaid; A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase 

In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be.

Think Jen Lancaster was always "like David Sedaris with pearls and a super-cute handbag?" (Jennifer Coburn) Think again. She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this humorous and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life-and wardrobe-before bitter was the new black and shows us a young woman not so very different than the rest of us.

The author who showed us what it was like to wait in line at the unemployment office with a Prada bag, how living in the city can actually suck, and that losing weight can be fun with a trainer named Barbie and enough Ambien is ready to take you on a hilarious and heartwarming trip down memory lane in her shoes (and very pretty ones at that). 

http://www.jennsylvania.com/jennsylvania/books.html

Bitter is the New Black

I loved this book! Working in the corporate world for as long as I have, I have seen and maybe even been( shh) this woman. There is a little bit of her in all of us. We all have our moments of frivolity. But it's when we realize we have gotten to that level of crazy and tone it down that we finally feel normal again. Keeping up with the Janes really can get tiring. You can only have so much before you realize that all you have is stuff!
Now that I am not working I look at my shoes, my purses, my jewelry, and clothes that I HAD TO HAVE and think "where am i going to wear this stuff now?" Most of my days are spent in yoga pants and T-shirts. Thankfully we are not at a point in our lives where we would need to start selling all that stuff because we don't know where we will get money to pay for the mortgage.
Things I did learn along the way:
1. If you can afford a hight rent payment it's better to buy a place (you can change the wallpaper).
2. ALWAYS put aside 10% of your income for a rainy day. working at the same place for 10 years I      was able to set aside enough to not have panic attacks.
3. Splurge every once in a while! We work our buts off and there is no point in doing all that to get to a point in our lives where we think "why didn't we..."
4. Cleaning your own home keeps you humble. It does not matter that you are wearing $30 Chanel nail polish when you are on your hands and knees cleaning toilet bowls.

Read this book, i'm glad I did!

Summay:

Jen Lancaster was living the sweet life-until real life kicked her to the curb.

She had the perfect man, the perfect job-hell, she had the perfect life-and there was no reason to think it wouldn't last. Or maybe there was, but Jen Lancaster was too busy being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, and generally adored to notice.

This is the smart-mouthed, soul-searching story of a woman trying to figure out what happens next when she's gone from six figures to unemployment checks and she stops to reconsider some of the less-than-rosy attitudes and values she thought she'd never have to answer for when times were good.

Filled with caustic wit and unusual insight, it's a rollicking read as speedy and unpredictable as the trajectory of a burst balloon.

---