A Little too Weird.

I got this signed ARC of Little Weirds by Jenny Slate at my favorite local independent book store. (As a gift from the owner! I know they're not allowed to sell ARCs!) The owner got it at Book Con in 2019. I was excited because I liked Jenny Slate during her short stint on SNL and in the film Obvious Child, and her web series about Marcel the Shell with Shoes on is adorable.

Jenny Slate is clearly a talented writer. I was jealous of some of the phrases she turned. I thought this little book of essays would be a good one to breeze through on a rainy afternoon but it took me months to get through. I would pick it up and read one or two essays and put it down again. She creates vivid images and certainly has fun playing with words but so much of it is a run-on, stream-of-consciousness spiral.

Example: she's describing a garden and choosing the plants she wants. "The flowers looked like the shape of a fruit, and I always like it when those two images, fruits and flowers, gesture to each other. I like that and I always have, and I like it when fruit is in flower arrangements and I like it when flowers are in the salad or on cakes and I like it when fruits are on women's heads in their hats or if their whole hat is fruit." This is how 90% of the book goes, and it just wasn't for me.

Then there were little gems that jumped out at me, which made me want to finish it out and find more gems. She has an essay of nice things to do for yourself. There is a brilliant two-page essay comparing holding a big, unwieldy dog to trying to navigate life after a breakup and dealing with the person who broke your heart. There was a metaphor that for me sums up the physical feeling I also get when I'm dealing with being depressed and anxious. "I try to imagine the blood in my arms and all I can imagine is air being blasted through pipes made of paper." I thought I was the only one. And there is the brilliant way she imagines a conversation between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, if they could look at the way that humanity turned out and express their disappointment to each other. "This is not our fault."

So while overall Little Weirds was too weird for me, there were little glimmers in there that worked for me. I wouldn't say it wasn't a good book but the frenetic, run-on style isn't up my alley. I'll happily check out her next project, though. She has a lot to offer!