Jenny Slate is the absolute queen of gentle weirdness. I wish I'd had someone like her in my life when I was younger. "Emotional horniness" is perhaps the greatest phrase to describe exactly what it sounds like that's every been written. I will carry this book with me forever.

I love Jenny Slate! I requested this book right away on that fact alone. Each essay is relatable... for fans or anyone reading them. This is the best essay collection I read this year.

*ARC provided via NetGalley ⁣
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I really enjoy humorous essay collections, especially when they are written by a favorite celebrity of mine. (Mindy Kaling for the win). I’m a fan of Jenny Slate’s acting and stand up specials, so I was eager to read her collection. ⁣
When one of the sentences in a book reads “I was born during the great Potato Chip, in the time of Jewish Deli Tongue Sandwich”, it gives you a good indication of what the rest of the book will be like. Here is Jenny imagining herself as a croissant, and now a singing vagina, then to wistful descriptions of her favorite flower and honest musings about her loneliness. This type of prose, which can be equal parts deeply poetic and deeply odd, reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk, and I can see how it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. It made me reflect on some of the weird dreams and thoughts I myself have had, and how I’ve kept those types of thoughts to myself because I’m afraid of what others may think. Thanks to Jenny, I have the courage to be more open about my own “little weirds”.

Quirky and relatable, Little Weirds is Jenny Slate's tour de force! With a stream of consciousness style that quickly draws you into a rich inner world, this book is a struggle to set down! Covering everything from ghosts to childhood (or maybe the ghosts of childhood?) to sexuality and loneliness, this novel is a great gift for anyone interested in unique poetry styles and/or confessionals.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thanks to NetGalley, Little, Brown & Company, and Jenny Slate for the opportunity to read this book.

However, I definitely feel like I am not the target audience for this book. It's a very stream of consciousness/memoir that is indeed full of "little weirds." Much too weird for me.

I did like the cover drawing though!

This is a strange, original book. Filled with pieces that are somewhere between essays and short stories it is not what you’d expect from Slate. It’s interesting and at times indulgent but the effort is much more compelling than the typical celebrity book.

OK so this book is WEIRD! But its billed as weird, so that makes it ok. I'd never heard of this comic but after reading this, I looked for her! Clever. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!

Read my full review here: https://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.com/2019/12/little-weirds.html

“I was born on the boundary line between cold and hot, at the intersection of the two elements that make a clap of thunder. I was born at the time of year when the sun wants to warm the earth but the winter has frozen it almost to the point of permanent frigidity.”

Welcome to Jenny Slate’s mind. The essays in her new book, Little Weirds vary in length from a paragraph or two to several pages long. Some are deeply personal and some are just—well—weird. She writes about her marriage ending while at the same time remembering her childhood; she celebrates her family and her friendships while deploring Donald Trump’s presidency. She is very hard on herself while at the same time looking forward to a future of self-acceptance and self-love.

The NPR reviewer was quite critical of Slate’s writing, wishing it were more like her stand-up musings. Since I knew nothing of her stand-up career, I had to watch a couple of YouTube videos to get a sense of how she is in person. Many of the videos were appearances on late night shows. Here is one visit to Seth Meyers. All of the topics appear to be deeply personal and off-the-cuff funny. Frankly, I think that she is a person that you would like to know.

I felt that the essays were very uneven and much more vague than her stand-up sets. Read it for yourself and form your own opinion. My advice, however, is to read it in little bursts. It is a bit much to read in one sitting.

Jenny Slate has a special on Netflix. It is called Stage Fright. At least now I know who Jenny Slate is.

Jenny Slate is a gift to the world. Her unique perspective & her unmatched quirkiness makes this book a delight. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to think, be confused, or just wants to escape reality for a bit.

I am very surprised by how much this one is not working for me. I can’t, by any means, label myself a significant Jenny Slate fan, but after reading about this one, I was certain it would make me so. However, the tone - florid when I expected funny - and the randomness just isn’t going well for me. I am not going to do a public review, as I did not read enough to justify a rating. Thanks for the opportunity, nonetheless, just a miss for me!

Was delighted to realize that the writer of this book was ALSO the adorable stand-up comedian I had just watched on Netflix. Fun and funny read.

OK, this book is definitely weird. In case you couldn't tell by the title or by knowing Jenny Slate and all her fabulousness. And I'm going to say that it's probably not the book for anyone. But if you're weird, too, and you often find yourself pondering life and all of its weirdness, you might find yourself really enjoying this!

Some of the essays are quick and some are a bit longer. Some feature kissing rabbits and some feature vaginas singing (what? yes.). My favorite one featured the time (times?) Jenny died while listening to a man talk. I could relate to this SO much and though I never imagined myself actually dying in these situations, now I do! And it actually helps.

Little Weirds is the kind of book you want to read slowly and I don't recommend it if you're looking for something light and breezy to fly through. I think you really need time to take in each essay and fully appreciate what Jenny is trying to say. It's also the kind of book that I'll definitely return to at some point as I feel like the essays will have different meanings for me at different points in my life.

Jenny Slate is preciously weird and funny. I adored this little collection and am so happy to read more from an author and comedian I admire.

I'm a big fan of Jenny Slate and really wanted to like this book but...I just couldn't. It's not a little weird, it's too weird. But in a trying too hard weird sort of way. It's less of a book and more of a performance art set to paper. I wish it were more about her or her humor.

This book is made up of a bunch of weird and funny stories and thoughts and lots of feelings of heartbreak and loss but also feelings of moving forward and loving yourself anyway. Jenny Slate is the kind of person everyone wants as their best friend or sister or fun aunt. She is so full of life and optimism and just makes the reader feel like its all going to be just fine.

A beautiful, short book full of lyrical words that read more like a poem than a memoir or collection of short stories. Slate's way with words make you feel alive and special, and this is a book full of heart, sadness, ugliness and prettiness.

Actress and stand-up comedian, Jenny Slate's new book, "Little Weirds," is a funny, honest and poignant book covering mature themes on love, desire, longing, loss, breakups and divorce. Her story is one about being alive despite the loss and hardships along the way.

Ms. Slate's book is not for the easily offended, she is a comedian after all. As a mid-thirty-something having gone through the heartbreak of divorce, I feel like I can relate to her struggles and feelings. My favorite part about the book is her way of speaking to and addressing real feelings and where she is at in a humorous way, poking fun at herself and her lost lovers, but not in a way that tears down the latter nor ignores the pain of her current situation.

I feel like this book is a treasure for a newly single person looking to get back up after a hard fall. I would recommend it to anyone who has gone through a bad breakup and is still affected by its residual effects. The book is filled with some hilarious one-liners as a lead into some deep thoughts about moving forward.

I received this as an eBook from Little, Brown and Company via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review of the title. I did not receive any compensation from either

OH wow! I wasn't sure what to expect when requesting this book. I just fell in love with the cover! And I'm so glad that I'm given this chance to read this quirky, aptly-titled memoir. It's very different from the usual memoirs I had read. This one to me, felt like a collection of stories, essays and poetry of small observations about life, love, loss, sadness, and can I saw small bouts of depression? About not only finding your voice and using it as well, especially for a woman living in this world of patriarchy.

As quirky as this had been written out to be, I could feel the author's ups and downs in life - having to deal with trying to be herself, loud and proud, and yet wanting to blend in with the rest of the world too; having to find someone to love and be loved for who she is and give her all the TLC that she deserves, and trying to live and breathe and live, and just be.

There were also inspiring, tender moments, and parts which I loved and highlighted such as, "I take it as a sign that it is all right to be alive as I am, just as I am, and to keep trying", “The more you give, the more you have, the more new things you are a part of, the more you are truly alive" and “Information about art and nature feels like the best stuff to have, and if you have it, it is powerful and excellent to pass it on.” These passages, so simple, yet so beautifully written and relatable.

If you're open to reading a memoir that's unique, poetic and tender, and many 'little weirds' with subtitles such as 'I Died: The Sad Songs of My Vagina', 'I Died: Listening' (One of my favorites) and 'Clothes Flying On/Day Flying Open', give this a try!

Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

I always enjoy Jenny Slate's work, and I was very excited to see that she had written a book and that I could get an eARC for it. The book started out living up to my expectations but quickly fluctuated between "where is she going with this" and "okay, this is pretty good...I think." At times I understood that she was trying to talk about a super common feeling, lonely, in an unusual, quirky way, but I often felt that the struggle to use unique fun language took over and clouded the points. I am sure this book may work for a lot of people, and I will recommend it to those I think will enjoy it, but for me a was a slight miss.


Thank you NetGalley & Publisher for the Arc of this work in exchange for my honest review.

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate - 4.5 stars
I really enjoyed this book. I read it all while sitting alone in a cabin in the woods, and that seemed like the perfect atmosphere for such an intimate, tender, strange book. This is not your typical celebrity memoir, and I am sure you would be disappointed if that's your expectation. I think it’s hard to describe the concept when the title does such a good job - it is a memoir of sorts, made up of “little weirds,” or a combination of creative nonfiction, essays, and short stories which include Slate’s real life experiences, but also include her extrapolations, dreams, and daydreams through a variety of different perspectives.

Slate takes the reader through her journey to heal from heartbreak and deep sadness. She approaches discussions of love, friendship, wildness, and patriarchy in new, creative, strange ways. I loved the essays where she talked about her childhood. Throughout the collection, she paints her family and friends in a beautiful but realistic light. Some of the chapters seemed particularly confusing at first, but I found that they were all in conversation which each other and continued to move her journey forward. There were recurring essay styles that I really loved: some in which Slate imagined the different circumstances of her birth and her death, some letters written from the perspective of “The Office of Internal Affairs” inside of her body, who is desperately trying to convince Slate to get her life in order, etc.

I’m not surprised that this book has been polarizing, and I doubt that Slate would be surprised, either. It reminds me of an ongoing criticism of millennial humor (see: 2017 Washington Post news story “Why Is Millennial Humor So Weird?” which just couldn’t grasp why millennials enjoy “surreal, dark, and completely meaningless” comedy). I think Little Weirds is at times dark and surreal, but it's also quite meaningful.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the free advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!