You Are Here: An Owners Manual for Dangerous Minds by Jenny Lawson

You Are Here: An Owners Manual for Dangerous Minds Reviews

• 
  Jenny Lawson

  I don't know why I never marked this as "read" since I actually wrote it but since I never did it keeps showing up in my recommended "readers like" suggestions like, "HEY HAVE YOU HEARD OF JENNY LAWSON?" and yes, I have. She's a mess and she's left a bunch of dirty dishes in my sink.
• 
  karen

  Sometimes people come into your life just to teach you how not to become them.
  
  only jenny lawson could pull off a book like this.
  
  if someone had said to me, “here, why don’t you read this coloring book that is full of affirmations about the importance of embracing your damage and finding inner strength and realizing you are not alone in the world, which features snippets of empowering phrases woven throughout the line drawings and opportunities to share personal experiences to better understand yourself?”
  
  i would have politely declined. i’m already as self-involved as i want to be, and this kind of stuff:
  
  I am stitched together by careful hands - remade from the torn and shredded pieces of who I have been and who I have grown out of. I am broken, but I am mended. And I am stronger because of it.
  
  well, the polite way to say it is that it is "...not for me.” but i know that jenny lawson isn’t some vaseline-smiling sentimentalist spinning twee saccharine shit into cheerleader positivity. she’s been so candid about her own struggles with pain and mental illness in the past, and this book is a collection of the stuff she drew for herself during her book tour for
  Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, “to keep my own hands from hurting me” and these inspirational slogans helped her to deal, which means they will help other people to deal, so who the fuck am i to pooh-pooh it? because for every instance like the one quoted above, which falls into “...not for me” territory, there’s something like this piece of adorable:
  
  
  
  
  or this warning:
  
  We are gentle souls.
  But if you fuck with us we will cut you.
  And we will eat your face meat.
  
  which is pure baller.
  
  and while the book does get a bit repetitive in its themes and therapeutic battle-cries, and its examples of stuff that is “...not for me,” there’s some advice that hits a little close to home:
  
  

  I love Shel Silverstein, but I’ve never understood the appeal of The Giving Tree. It’s supposed to be a tale of self-sacrifice but it always struck me as a super abusive relationship. The tree gives this kid her apples and the boy eventually chops her limbs off and hollows her trunk out and then dumps her in the ocean. That’s real serial killer shit, y’all.
  
  Sometimes I work too hard or give too much and I become that tree. And it makes sense. If you give too much of yourself you can’t recover. You’re worthless except as a stump for some habitual user to rest his ass on. Sometimes self-care and restraint and giving yourself the ability to say “no” is the only way to keep yourself strong enough (and you enough) in order to keep giving, and to feel happy in giving rather than feeling exhausted and taken advantage of. Plus, if you say “no” every once in a while you won’t have to wonder if you inadvertently created a serial killer because you were too nice of a tree to say, “NO, ACTUALLY I DON’T WANT TOU TO DECAPITATE ME.” (That last sentence seems like a strange, random string of words, but I’m keeping it because maybe you need to hear it. Friends don’t let friends become decapitated trees.)

  
  
  remember that, self!
  
  i honestly didn’t know what to expect when i heard she had a coloring book coming out, and i wouldn’t really even call this a coloring book. it’s more like a cross-section of her brain - doodles and thoughts and stories and mantras, everything swimming under the surface of her glorious skull. the drawings themselves are impressively intricate:
  
  
  
  
  in case you can’t see the detail, here’s a closer look:
  
  
  
  
  and the writing isn't all feel-gooderie pronouncements; there’s plenty of humor and bits about pigeons and poop and pillow-forts, the dangers of narwhals, how beavers are just ‘cheap otters,’ and a hard to disagree with declaration that most of my favorite people are cats
  
  cue cat drawings!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  i want to share one more personal favorite, even though it’s a little long:
  
  

  When I was little my anxiety disorder made me afraid of everything. I avoided people and retreated into books. I would do anything to stay out of the spotlight.
  
  My teachers often told me to “stop being a frightened little rabbit.” I’m sure they meant well, but when you have an anxiety disorder you avoid a lot of life. You find joy in books or art or things you can do in hiding. Sometimes that gives people the wrong idea. They think that you’re a frightened little rabbit. They think that the fear you battle makes you weak, but in fact, it makes you strong.
  
  You fight through fear every moment. Every day. The worry never completely ceases, but you keep reaching out to find your life, and to live it and love it. That takes courage. A learned courage that has to be sustained and practiced. And sometimes you hide away because the fear wins for a bit… but soon you’ll turn your hand to life again, even knowing the consequences. I am a frightened little rabbit, it’s true. But anyone who has spent time raising rabbits knows this often-forgotten truth…frightened rabbits fight the hardest. They know when to trust and when to run. They pick their battles. They survive tough odds even though they are constant prey for anything bigger than they are. They are cute and adorable, but if you fuck with them they will scratch your goddamn eyes out.
  
  When I was in 3rd grade I had a rabbit named “Pootie McGee” who was a total snuggle-monster, but when the cat got too close to us Pootie freaked the shit out and scratched the hell out of my face, using his tiny but almost magically powerful back legs to get to higher ground (i.e., the top of my head). I had a scar on my face for a month that looked like I’d been in a knife fight. And I had, in a way. I looked like a tiny bad-ass you shouldn’t fuck with because of another tiny and easily underestimated bad-ass.
  
  I am a frightened rabbit. And if you don’t think that’s something to respect then you are seriously underestimating me

  
  
  
  
  lawson OUT!
  
  *********************************************
  
  look what got here EARLY!!!!
  
  
  
  
  ignore the messy bed with hastily-discarded barnes and noble bag behind me - my priorities are always gonna be boasting before tidying.
  
  review to come!
  
  
  come to my blog!
• 
  Amy (Other Amy)

  This book is dedicated to my chronic anxiety.
  
  You are literally always there for me, and you accidentally forced me to make this book to help save me from you. You deserve a vacation.
  
  No, really. Go. We're fine here.
  
  And more importantly, it's dedicated to the people on the Internet who sit with me (in spirit) while I hide away from the world. You have the key to my pillow fort. Always.
  
  I recently told a friend that I have been struggling with depression for two years. (I mean, I've always had depression in my life; it went to all the schools with me, goes to work with me, sits in that one corner of my living room all the time. But the last two years it has decided, for reasons even I don't even fully understand, to take the proverbial baseball bat to my ability to function, and it's been a little rough. So that's what I was relating.) She paused, then asked me if I'd looked into getting medicated. Because people generally assume that's where we are with depression. That we have a pill to fix it now, and if you haven't gotten it fixed then you're probably choosing to suffer. I don't relate this to blame my friend, but just as a general cultural reference for where we are with the acceptance of this sort of illness in society.
  
  Enter Jenny Lawson. She has now written three books relating her personal mental and emotional struggles. This one happens to be a coloring book made of pictures that she largely drew while suffering from panic attacks on her book tour for the last one. And that really is what makes it work. She gets it. She has been through it. There is the occasional platitude in here, but they are interspersed with musings on what it might have been like to title the book DON'T POISON EVERYONE, the fury of terrified rabbits, and the practicality of having someone to rob if things don't improve. I am deeply grateful for this woman, and I hope she continues to share her misadventures with anxiety and depression for a long time, both because I like to laugh along with her, and because the world continues to need her. To need people who will stand up and say, "I'm broken, and you can't fix me, but that's fine." It's a stance I try to take myself, and I enjoy and admire the company.
  
  Anyway, good book. Have a picture.
  
  
  
  10/14/17: Full review done.
  ****************************************************************************
  9/26/17: I don't know if it turned out to be a sign, but that was the book I damn well needed right now. Full review to come.
  *****************************************************************************
  7/19/16: Surely this is a sign that 2017 will be an improvement over 2016. Yes?
• 
  Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader

  I preordered You Are Here. I am a fan of Jenny Lawson, her candidness about her own mental health challenges and her sense of humor. I started with her book Furiously Happy with the glittery cover complete with a smiling raccoon! I also have followed her a blog a little, and her first book is on my shelf as well. I have dabbled in adult coloring, but more coloring equaled less reading...Well, this book combines both. Filled with affirmations and beautiful illustrations, this is one engaging coloring book. Now to get myself to take the time to color some...it really is a great way to slow down and clear the mind! :)
• 
  jv poore

  Yet another book that is spectacular to have on hand when I need a lift.
• 
  Erica

  EDITED TO INCLUDE ANOTHER FUN STORY!
  Nov. 2017: EDITED AGAIN TO INCLUDE AN UPDATE! SCROLL DOWN, DOWN, DOWN TO THE END OF THIS LONG REVIEW!
  
  I have SO MANY cool stories surrounding this book.
  I've bought 6 copies and still don't own one. I haven't even read it yet.
  However, the joy this thing has brought me since the pre-order date went live is worth those 5 stars and then some.
  Most of the stories are only cool to me but two of them are cool beyond my borders!
  
  STORY 1:
  One lunchtime, I was scrolling through Twitter and saw that The Bloggess had tweeted that Macmillan would give out "You Are Here" tote bags to the first 5,000 people who emailed them a picture of their You Are Here pre-order receipts. I'd pre-ordered my first copy from the local bookstore and the receipt was at home and I still had hours left on the clock. There was NO way I was gonna make it in time so I ordered another copy through Amazon right that very moment and sent a screengrab of the receipt to Macmillan.
  I never got a reply.
  I figured I'd missed the cut-off. I was sad.
  I was sad because I wanted to get the tote for
  karen. We have Bloggess history. We met through
  Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, she sent me an ARC of
  Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things as well as a Rory mask. I was disappointed that I wouldn't be continuing the love by sending the tote in the box o' Easter crap I had waiting for her.
  The book was released. The library got in some copies a couple of days beforehand so I had a chance to peruse it and it gave me joy. karen got her copy and
  reviewed it and we chatted about it in the comment thread where she said unto me:
  i tried to get you a bag yesterday; the publisher was giving 5,000 of them out with proof of purchase, but they were all out by the time i got my little foot in the door.
  Awww, right? We were thinking about each other!
  BUT THEN!
  The day (maybe it was two days) before I was set to mail karen's box o' Easter crap, the bag arrived in the mail! The publisher had gotten my receipt, after all! I was SO FREAKING EXCITED!
  
  
  And I got it in the box just in time and mailed it and karen got it amazingly quickly (Bloggess magic, I am sure) and said it was an o. henryesque moment.
  The end.
  Such a cool story!
  
  STORY 2:
  Can be found
  here. It's a thing I did for work involving this book and libraries and ... it's just neat. Go read it.
  
  So all this excitement and I still don't own a copy of this book.
  But I will. There are 3 copies coming to me. Let's see if I can hold onto them and maybe I'll finally get to read this.
  
  Edit, May 8, 2017:
  So, yeah, The Bloggess
  re-blogged the blog post and, you know, NBD.
  Only, except, I have to go die now.
  
  Edit, November 13, 2017
  
  HERE is an update on how our library copies are doing.
• 
  Monica

  Really great! Combination of humor, coloring, sarcasm, and inspiration. This book definitely would not be for everyone due to language, but it made me laugh!
  
  An adult coloring book at its finest! :)
• 
  Kathy Heare Watts

  FINAL UPDATE: As promised from the publisher, I received a complete book and the final copy is impressive. I had received a sample book that was about 8 pages. The complete, finished and published copy is 150 pages. It is available for pre-order at Amazon and will release on March 7, 2017.
  
  Now, what I have read and the artwork has had me laughing, and yes, there was some inspiration and humor in those lines. It is sometimes raw, edgy, emotional, a chance to express feelings, and the artwork is impressive, a true talent with honesty. I have changed my rating and altered my review.
  
  I received a copy in the mail that I won in a Goodreads giveaway. I am under no obligation to write a review and do so voluntarily. All thoughts, opinions, and ratings are my own.
• 
  ❀⊱RoryReads⊰❀

  This book is like a really funny, compassionate friend who comes over to your house to cheer you up. Filled with advice and reassurance, not to mention lovely drawings to color, it's sure to be of help when your world goes pear shaped.
• 
  Traci

  I wasn't sure when I started this if I would like it. It's not really like her other two books, which were more memoir-ish. At first glance, this looks a bit like an adult coloring book, as there are pictures on almost every other page that are black-and-white, and yes, they can be colored in by the reader. There's some text by the author, mostly some of her musings, but sometimes just a sentence or two. Very self-help-y. Which seems at odds with an author who yells and swears at her loving husband, Victor, about things like finding long-lost cemeteries.
  
  But then I began reading, and I loved it. Keep in mind that Ms. Lawson freely admits to having a host of medical issues, both physical and mental. She's very upfront about her battles with depression and mental illness, as well as auto-immune disorders. As she states more than once, she is "broken" - but that's OK. This book is her reaching out to the other "broken" people that have read her books, and her blog, telling them that they are here, that she sees them, and that she's there for them. Which is a wonderful thing to realize for *anyone* - that you are not alone, whether you feel like you're broken or not.
  
  I'm seriously thinking of buying a copy for myself, just so I can have it around when I really need it. Which could be at a sad moment, or just one of those moments where I'm feeling a bit stabby, as the author likes to say. :-)
• 
  Beth Cato

  This was the perfect first book for the New Year, and one of the more useful mental health books I've ever read. Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, is upfront about her struggles against her own mind and the blessings and curses along the way. I can relate. What I appreciate about this is that it feels like anecdotes and conversation with a friend who gets it--this isn't some preachy doctor telling you think this or do this and you'll be "normal." Nope. What the heck is normal, anyway?
  
  The books features Jenny's own line drawings throughout, and she encourages readers to use it as a coloring book or for destructive art or anything they want. The art is pleasant to behold and I enjoyed reading the text she worked into the images.
  
  I think I'll be keeping You Are Here within arm's reach to flip through as needed to help me through 2019.
• 
  AK Mama Reads

  OMG I Won a copy, I'm so excited!!!
  
  
  Update: the review copy is in the works, so, yay! and thank you Flatiron!
• 
  Nicholle

  Awesomely perfect. I kept thinking, "This is the exact right time in my life to read this book," but the beauty of it is, I have a feeling that when I re-read and re-re-read and re-re-re-read it, I'll think the same thing. I want to buy at least 3 more to give as gifts.
  ***
  2017 Popsugar Challenge - Book you've read before and makes you smile (okay, I haven't read it before, but let's just look into the future a bit.)
• 
  Bethany

  This was a quick read, which makes sense since it's half colouring book and have inspirational quotes! Very good though! I love the illustrations, which are beautifully drawn and have quotes running through them! The pages are perforated for easy tearing an colouring! Also arranged in such a way that there is a quote on the back of the art, so if the ink bleeds through when you are colouring you won't care.
  
  Some favourite quotes from the book:
  
  

  Sometimes people come into your life just to teach you how not to become them.

  
  
  

  Listen to the tiny voice inside your head. Unless it's trying to tell you that you're worthless. Then, fuck that voice. That voice is an asshole.

  
  
  

  It's true that love can break your heart. But so, too, can too much cheese. And life is not worth living without tasting love. Or cheese. So protect your heart. But not too much.

  
  
  
• 
  Noëlle McHenry

  This book is beautiful. I don't think I've ever read anything that has hit so close to home or made me so emotional. The words inside are ones I didn't know I needed to hear (or read, I suppose), and the illustrations are ones I didn't know I needed to see. From now on, whenever I feel depressed or worthless, I know what book I'll be using as my anchor. I will look at this book and be reminded that I am still here.
• 
  Autumn Kovach

  What a brilliant compilation of inspiring quotes, witty stories and the invitation to create by coloring in the beautiful designs scattered throughout this book. Jenny keeps it real yet hilarious. She has such good words for people at any stage of their life journey whether it's in dealing with mental heath struggles, being creative or just getting through the day. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book;
  
  "Surviving the darkest moments will make you stronger in will, character, empathy, compassion, or all four."
  
  "The Whale with the Handgun" story (pg 78) - so funny!
  
  "Mister Crackers" pg 85
  
  "...we often forget how much we're loved because it doesn't always present itself in ways that make you physically grasp. It's real though. And you're soaking in it."
  
  Little quotes like "You will get through this" are so profound as it gives permission to the soul to just breathe.
  
  Jenny makes you think with her gentle questions to either help self-analyze or sometimes put the focus on something light and whimsical. An interactive book that is just there to be whatever you need it to be in that moment. It's the perfect book for any friend, any occasion -- especially those who like to color or have yet to discover this therapy.
• 
  Emily

  I loved this book! I also read it at the perfect time. My copy was from the library and other readers had written and colored in it. It made the book that much better. I'll be buying my own copy but I definitely recommend checking out your library copy and writing something for others to see.
• 
  Kimberly

  This is exactly what I needed today. Quick, inspiring read.
• 
  Karen

  Thank you to my Wine Camp girls for this book! Lawson’s nuggets of inspiration and wisdom and corresponding sketches/doodles were such fun to read and helped me to remember that I Am Here. And that’s all that matters. ❤️
• 
  Jessica J.

  I am going to need to remember to pull this book out when the hard days seem to be winning. 💓
• 
  Chelsey Wilson

  Loved the messages in here. Jenny Lawson is a hilarious genius. I will be putting this aside for later times when I need it again because I know I will.
• 
  Victoria

  This book is now one of my favourite things.
• 
  Nikki

  All I can say, Jenny, is... NAILED IT!
  
  Raw, edgy, and stupidly funny, as one expects. Also, the pages tear out, so do with that what you will ....*wink wink*
  
  
• 
  Katie

  A different kind of coloring book. Recommended if you like something a little more quirky and focused on helping with anxious thoughts.
• 
  Michelle

  This is perfect and wonderful and already my favorite coloring book ever and the only one I am leaving on the shelf by my chair which holds the books that hold me together on bad days.
• 
  Jamie Dacyczyn

  This is a tough one to rate.....Compared to Jenny Lawson's other books, it's definitely lacking in humor and substance. It's essentially a coloring book with inspirational passages and quips. No humorous anecdotes or essays like those that made me love Lawson. I read through it in half an hour.
  
  But...when rated as a coloring book, it's very whimsical and fun. So, my rating is for it as a coloring book, not as compared to her other books.
  
  That said, I don't know if I can ever color in this. The thought makes me feel anxious.
• 
  Lesa Neace

  I received what I assume to be a "sample" book from Goodreads in exchange for a honest review. From so little of the material, I really couldn't offer any sort of review. I was a bit disappointed at not receiving the actual book because my friends have highly recommended the author's other works.
• 
  Jen Petro-Roy

  I just love Jenny Lawson.
• 
  Jennifer Girard

  I just love Jenny Lawson's humor and the way she talks about her anxiety and her mental health in general. The illustrations were amazing.
• 
  Stephanie (aka WW)

  This book is poetry for the broken mind. Not traditional poetry (which is ick), but beautiful, lyrical words that say what those struggling with mental health issues most need to hear. Jenny is that friend we all need, who provides wisdom and hope, while at the same time, making us pee our pants with laughter. We all need that laugh.
  
  “I always thought I’d like to be a dandelion – those vivid yellow flowers that bloom in the cracks of sidewalks or abandoned lots. Anything that thrives in such strange, broken places holds a special kind of magic. It shines bright and golden for a moment before it withers, but then – when most have given in up for dead – it explodes into an elaborate globe of spiderweb seedlings so fragile that a wind or a wish sends it to pieces.
  
  But the falling apart isn’t the end.
  
  It depends on the falling apart.
  
  Its fragility lets it be carried to new places, to paint more gold in the cracks.
  
  I always thought I’d like to be a dandelion.
  
  But I think in a way, I already am.”