Broken

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Just what this horrible year needs right now is the return of Jenny Lawson, who is really the ONLY author ever to make me LOL so hard I cry, blow milk out my nose and pee my pants, all at the same time. I've now read all four of her books, and this is something of a return to the full power she exhibited in her first classic ( Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir). Long-time fans of Winslow's work will recognize some familiar characters, most notably weed growers Ben, Chon and O, who first appeared in 2012 in The Kings of Cool. Here, in what the author describes as an "intermediate adventure," the three best friends are vacationing in Hawaii where they run into a battle with some local gangsters while attempting to expand their area of production. Il primo romanzo breve (sono tutti intorno alle novanta pagine) è un succo (concentrato estratto centrifugato shakerato mixato agitato) di testosterone con la vendetta come motore. L’ho letto senza particolare piacere.

You can guess what happens next. Either little brother mans up to help out big brother, or big brother goes on crazed torture-killing spree to avenge his precious younger sibling. Little brother’s killer seems to have broken into the Madrid Museum of the Spanish Inquisition to steal torture gadgets and books on torture to fully paint himself as the truly evil bad guy in this story. It’s impossible not to feel sorry for her, but that’s not what’s she after. She just wants to help others, and she succeeds. Her chapter on anxiety is really good (says this person with a lot of anxiety); loved her reminder that “all small terrors pass.” Also stellar is her chapter about a bizarre but legit treatment for depression (which involved doctors applying magnets to her head—I kid you not). Oh, and besides her head stuff, she has big physical ailments, too, like rheumatoid arthritis. She goes through a lot. As fans of Jenny AKA The Bloggess know from either her previous two books or social media accounts, she suffers from not only mental illness but ailments such as rheumatoid arthritis, pre-diabetes, and anemias. In “Broken,” she really takes those monsters by their horns. One chapter is a painfully-relatable letter to her insurance company, another details her many months going through experimental treatments. While her wit can be found in these sections, they’re just not… funny. And that’s OK, it doesn’t appear they’re supposed to be. All of the stories are first-rate, but my favorite is "Crime 101", which Winslow dedicates to "Mr. Steve McQueen," and which perfectly evokes the sense of cool that characterized the late, great actor. The story pits a very clever and successful jewel robber who haunts California Highway 101 and who is looking for that fabled one last score. He's pitted against a detective who, contrary to the perceived wisdom of the various police agencies investigating the string of robberies, believes that they are all the work of a single criminal. I highly recommend Lawson's books, but realize that for every story about lawn gerbils and boxes of penises there are stories about dark depression and pain. It's a balance that I think she handles well and we can all take something away from learning to find the lightness in every situation.

The San Diego Zoo brings some much-needed comedy with this story of a young cop trying to arrest a gun-wielding chimp. It was genuinely funny and even sweet in parts, but still sported Winslow's cinematic style. ★★★★★ Don Winslow’s BROKEN is a gift, one bequeathed at just the right time. What we have here is six original novels, each of which reads like a short story yet contains the stimulating heft of a full-length book. This collection is aimed boldly and squarely at two groups of readers: folks who have been with Winslow from the very beginning of his fiction-writing career (or have come to him at a later point and hastened to fill in the gaps) and those who are unfamiliar with or only marginally aware of his work. There is plenty here for both, with stories that introduce new characters and others that revisit old friends --- and enemies. This one was funny as hell and a nice little police procedural on top of that. Definitely my favorite of the lot and the one most likely to spawn a recurring role by the character of Chris, and possibly Champ the Chimp.

I'd never read Don Winslow before, and I think this was a good place to start. Broken consists of six novellas of crime fiction, fast-paced and full of suspense. It tells of cops who skate a thin line between justice and personal vengeance, and villains so full of charm that you can't help but root for them. Yeah, Jenny and I are simpatico. And my hope is that she’s reading this and going “OMG well I never lost a lady part, so that’s SOMETHING.” And I hope the loss of that lady bit makes her feel better about her problems. If they had let me save that lady bit I’d give it to her as a medal and pin it on her so she could wear it and tell people how much her new bestie appreciates her. I mean what did you give YOUR bestie? Bet those flowers are looking lame right now. All Because she made me feel better about my problems. And damn that feels good. I enjoyed Broken much more than Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, which I read years ago and considered too one-note. Broken had some of those elements and sections that felt draggy, and I'll admit that I even skimmed a few parts. However, the bright spots of the story overshadowed the less interesting sections. There were a few sections about this book that were really good. I think her open letter to her insurance provider should be printed out and everyone should be made to read it (especially politicians and law-makers). I also liked the sections where she talks openly about mental health and chronic pain, because those are things that should be normalized, and the more people do that, the more natural it seems. The cringe compilation she got from her followers sharing some of their top embarrassing moments was also pretty great-- although in that section, the humor really wasn't hers. Bits and pieces of the writing in other sections wrenched a smile or a raised eyebrow but overall, this was a miss for me.Sunset is a story that was written to include Winslow's "Dawn Patrol" characters like Boone Daniels. This is a good story and it's fun to spend some time with the gang again. The story is good though perhaps not to the quality level of others in this collection, it only suffers in comparison that way-on it's own, it's fantastic. Hailey would look at me in awe. “And you couldn’t afford YouTube?” she’d ask. And then I’d explain that there was a time before YouTube and then she’d start to doubt the veracity of my stories and I’d just say, “Yeah. We couldn’t afford YouTube.” Detective Lou is a great invention, although I don't recollect if he is on loan from another Winslow novel. If not, he deserves more room, he needs to be let out (like me in my confinement) and have his own novel.

Most of us have felt the frustration of our own forgetfulness. Ms. Lawson’s recollection issues provide perspective. Her open letter to her health insurance company highlights contradictions in their policies along with procedures that are almost nonsensical. Relatable, if you’ve ever been baffled by insurance. My choices seem to be to either shank the person who is making me scared or get rid of all my fluids so I can run faster. I choose peeing over stabbing.” A walk-on of sorts also occurs in “The San Diego Zoo.” It’s a fairly innocuous title that begins when a San Diego patrolman named Chris Shea responds to a report of an armed chimpanzee at the zoo. What results earns Shea lots of YouTube notoriety, as well an excruciatingly slow-budding romance. There’s a mystery here as well, consisting of how a chimp got hold of a handgun. Shea solves this one, too, with the encouragement of another character who plays a larger role in “Crime 101” and appears yet again in “Sunset.” Jenny: Let's change "butt" to "buttonhole." Editor: Are you sure you want to do that? Jenny: Oops, that was autocorrect. I meant let's change "butt" to "butthole."Sunset might be the most well-written story in the bunch and is a nostalgic story set in the California surf community about maturity and loyalty, featuring some of Winslow's oldest characters. ★★★★★