Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner

by Jen Lancaster

Overview

In Such a Pretty Fat, Jen Lancaster learned how to come to terms with her body. In My Fair Lazy, she expanded her mind. Now the New York Times bestselling author gives herself—and her generation—a kick in the X, by facing her greatest challenge to date: acting her age.

Jen is finally ready to put away childish things (except her Barbie Styling Head, of course) and embrace the investment-making, mortgage-carrying, life-insurance-having adult she’s become. From getting a mammogram to volunteering at a halfway house, she tackles the grown-up activities she’s resisted for years, and with each rite of passage she completes, she’ll uncover a valuable—if probably humiliating—life lesson that will ease her path to full-fledged, if reluctant, adulthood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451417169
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/07/2013
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	852,620
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jen Lancaster is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books. She has appeared on Today, The Joy Behar Show, and NPR’s All Things Considered. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband and their ever-expanding menagerie of ill-behaved pets.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One
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Excerpted from "Jeneration X"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Jen Lancaster.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Author's Note 5

1 Involuntarily Voluntary 9

2 The Evolution of a Bad Idea 23

3 Flipping the Script 31

4 Luck Nineteen 49

5 The Queen of Kings 63

6 Get Off My Lawn 67

7 Generation Y Don't You Do It for Me? 79

8 A Barbie Girl in a Barbie World 89

9 I Wish I Could Quit you, Gladys Kravitz 109

10 The Old Dog Whisperer 127

11 Don't Blame Mii, Japan 137

12 As Seen on TV 143

13 Role Models 151

14 Peer Pressure 159

15 How Do You Talk to Girls 167

16 Ring of Fire 183

17 Bond, Jen Bond 191

18 The One About The Monkey 199

19 It's Not Like Texas Didn't Warn You 213

20 Quickbooks, Quicker Shovels 221

21 I Know Why You Fly 235

22 That's the Night That the Lights Went Out (in Lake County) 249

23 The Five Stages of Grief 267

24 Generator X 275

25 When Bad Things Happen to Bad People 297

26 Death and Taxes? Can I Select Neither? 319

27 Distinguish Myself 327

Epilogue 349

Acknowledgments 351

What People are Saying About This

Carrie Ryan

"Jen Lancaster has the kind of scathing wit that makes you wish she was your best friend but thankful she's not your new neighbor."

Sarah Pekkanen

 “Jen Lancaster is in a master class when it comes to infusing books with wit and charm.”

From the Publisher

“Jen Lancaster has the kind of scathing wit that makes you wish she was your best friend but thankful she’s not your new neighbor.”—New York Times Bestselling Author Carrie Ryan

“Jen Lancaster has a sense of humor as sharp as the teeth of those little alligators on her beloved Lacoste shirts.”—The Charlotte Observer

“She’s like that friend who always says what you’re thinking—just 1,000 times funnier.”—People

Editorial Reviews

Jen Lancaster has the kind of scathing wit that makes you wish she was your best friend but thankful she’s not your new neighbor.”—New York Times Bestselling Author Carrie Ryan

“Jen Lancaster has a sense of humor as sharp as the teeth of those little alligators on her beloved Lacoste shirts.”—The Charlotte Observer

“She’s like that friend who always says what you’re thinking—just 1,000 times funnier.”—People

From the Publisher

"She's absolutely hilarious."

Chicago Sun-Times

"She's like that friend who always says what you're thinking—just 1,000 times funnier."

People

"Jen Lancaster has the kind of scathing wit that makes you wish she was your best friend but thankful she's not your new neighbor."

New York Times Bestselling Author Carrie Ryan

 “Jen Lancaster is in a master class when it comes to infusing books with wit and charm.”

Sarah Pekkanen

"Jen Lancaster has the kind of scathing wit that makes you wish she was your best friend but thankful she's not your new neighbor."

Carrie Ryan

An immature woman takes a crack at maturity in this chatty memoir. Lancaster (My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or, a Culture-Up Manifesto, 2010, etc.) provides some laugh-out-loud moments: Her accounts of giving herself a moustache wax in the middle of the night and of putting Vaseline all over her cat showcase the author's cheerful willingness to share potentially embarrassing yet hilarious moments from her life. Most of the stories are about rites of adulthood, such as refinancing a mortgage and getting a mammogram, and Lancaster concludes each with a short "Reluctant Adult Lesson Learned." This theme organizes what could have otherwise been a scattered series of anecdotes. On the whole, however, her experiences are more ordinary than transformative. Lancaster is the author of several other similar memoirs (Bitter is the New Black, Such a Pretty Fat) and often assumes that readers will be familiar with her back story, which could make it difficult for those new to her work to follow the narrative thread. At its best, this memoir will feel as comfortable as a long conversation with an old friend. However, longtime fans may wonder if they have anything in common with their old friend anymore--particularly during the chapter in which she describes her hunt for the perfect vintage bowling trophy--and new readers may occasionally feel like they are eavesdropping on an obnoxious person braying into her cell phone. Ultimately, Lancaster is abrasive and proud of it, and her ability to be true to herself mostly redeems her less-than-flattering moments. Like Froot Loops for dinner: fun but unsubstantial.

Kirkus Reviews