Excellent fare

When this book came across my desk last week I knew I was in for a treat but didn’t anticipate how much of a treat until I sat down to read a few pages before dinner.

Four hours and 283 pages later, cheeks sore from laughing, I realised (mostly due to the rumbling coming from my midriff) that I still hadn’t had dinner and my few pages had turned into completing this funny, yet honest, autobiography in one sitting.

My journey with Jennifer – know by her friends as either Jen or Fer but never Jenny – was a quick and most enjoyable one in which she is brutally honest about both her cancer and her career faux pas, as well as describing some of the highlights of her life. Its a book I want all my friends to read because its just so quotable but to do so to the uninformed would just be silly. They need to be in the know, immediately, so the quoting may commence.

For those familiar with either the French and Saunders comedy strip or Absolutely Fabulous, you’ll know this was never going to be the most PC book – with lines that include “I had two tiny bridesmaids. Tiny because they were children, not midgets”. It is, however, one of the most endearing and certainly the funniest autobiography to hit the shelves.

Saunders’ has superb comic timing and, as one who is familiar with the Ab Fab series, I could just imagine her telling (rather than writing) this story.

Aside from telling her tale, Saunders makes this book a very personal conversation with every reader through her notes and asides to Dear Reader where she comments on the story she is telling acknowledges she may have steered just a smidge of topic.

As I mentioned this is a great book for quoting as, since most of you have yet to get your hands on it, I’m going to tease you with two of the myriad quotes I found most entertaining and suitable …

“Can I just say, what is it with the height of shoes nowadays? Shoe stilts that women are forced into? Six-inch heels? Really? … Once a heel is that high you are basically just walking on tippy toes. You would be better off just painting shoes on your feet and actually walking on tippy toes. It would be less painful.” As some one who hates high heels, I couldn’t agree more.

Commenting on her love of cars and the Alfa Romeo Spider she bought herself with the first bit of money she ever made “I should have done something sensible with the money, of course, but why would you? Even now when I hear myself telling my girls to do something sensible with any money they might have earned, there is a voice in the back of my head saying ‘Or you could just buy a really pretty car!'” Now I may not know much about cars, but every women know the joy of buying something just because its “really pretty”.

So, having enjoyed this book immensely and shared with you some of my favourite parts, my advice is to drop what you are doing, immediately, and get you hands on a copy of Bonkers this very minute.

Giggle away with Jen/Fer.