Little Weirds

by Jenny Slate

An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Hello and welcome to my book. Inside you will find:

× The smell of honeysuckle
× Heartbreak
× A French-kissing rabbit
× A haunted house
× Death
× A vagina singing sad old songs
× Young geraniums in an ancient castle
× Birth
× A dog who appears in dreams as a spiritual guide
× Divorce
× Electromagnetic energy fields
× Emotional horniness
× The ghost of a sea captain
× And more

I hope you enjoy these little weirds.

Love,
Jenny Slate

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Audiobook, Poetry, Humor, Short Stories

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2019

About the author

Jenny Sarah Slate is an American actress, stand-up comedian, and author best known as the creator of the Marcel the Shell With Shoes On short films, which was also spun off into a children's book. She is also known for her season as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 2009 to 2010, as well as for her recurring roles on House of Lies, Parks and Recreation, Bob's Burgers, and Kroll Show. She most recently starred in the 2014 Sundance film Obvious Child, and currently co-stars in the FX comedy series Married.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Jenny Slate.

I love her so much that I knew if this book even made me think about her, I’d be a fan, but it did way more than that. I felt like I was in what appears to be the single most magical non-fictional place in all the world: inside Jenny Slate’s brain.

https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...

If you have so much as watched an interview of hers, it’s immediately clear that she sees the world in a way that is totally unique to her. It is such a gift to be able to see that perspective for 304 pages.

She uses language differently. Words are lovely and flowerlike and carefully selected. Images are clear and breathtaking. This is an extraordinary thing.

Now, for a small request.

I would like every book I read to be written by Jenny Slate, thanks very much.

Okay, fine, compromise. I at least would like her to write 100 more books.

I got one dose of the beautiful starlike lens through which she perceives everything and just one look through her perception is not going to cover it please and thank you.

This was so gorgeous that when I finished it I immediately wanted to restart.

Also now I want to again.

Bottom line: This is a perfect little book.

----------------
project 5 star

welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, an event in which i revisit books i used to love and see if i still do out of masochism or completionism or...something.

i feel (gag) hopeful about this one.

update: not to worry. STILL FIVE

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pre-review

while i was reading this, i had to stop for a moment, close it, put it down, take a breath, and whisper to myself: oh, my gosh. i love this so much.

review to come / 5 stars

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currently-reading updates

i am 11 pages into this book and i already know i've never read anything like it in all my life.

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tbr review

i love jenny slate and i can't wait to have this book in my brain.

[Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I picked up a copy of this book it came with a tiny acorn that I nestled behind my sternum. With each page I turned and each word I read, it watered the acorn which eventually started to grow. Little sprouts kicked out of each side of its hard, brown shell and wrapped their tender arms around my heart and gave my lungs a big hug. Eventually it grew limbs that spread down through the cavity of my chest, leaves pressing to fight their way out through my skin and reach the sun. I felt a branch fighting its way up my esophagus and so I opened my mouth hole and yelled a big smile into the sky to set it free. I think Jenny Slate may have harvested that tree on which she printed the pages of this book. Just a guess really, because when I read back her words it was like the loop was closed, like she knew that mighty oak was inside me all along, and yet she was the one planting the seed in the first place.

[10/10]

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful experience on audio, which the author reads. I had no prior experience with Jenny Slate before this, but she seems like a weird delight who GETS IT. I’d like to have brunch with her.

[Mari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why you might not like this book: It's weird. It is strange and rambling and exudes a certain kind of earnest energy I can see rubbing some people the wrong way. It is part collection of essays and part memoir and part micro fiction all at once.

Why I loved this book: While reading this, I felt like I was having competing experiences: it was both surreal and heartbreakingly, achingly real. It was magical realism and non-fiction. It was at times so bright and hopeful and at times all of my saddest thoughts on paper. Slate has managed to capture her thoughts and emotions with a bit of magic and self-indulgence and commit them to paper. I saw one middling review call this book A LOT and it is! It is densely packed vulnerability, rapid fire thoughts and observations, and a certain taking up space that I admire. I've often made myself less, in a way Slate describes in this very book, to avoid that particularly review of my being. She's a lot. She's exhausting. Slate pours it all out unapologetically.

In a true measure of my feeling for a book, I already know I'll read this again. I ordered a physical copy so I can savor the words, highlight them and find my favorites. I've already demanded that my best friend read this. And even knowing this weird little book is likely to miss with a lot of people, I want to recommend it to everyone on the chance it will find another home like it found in me.

[Portia · Rating 2 out of 5]

LITTLE WEIRDS by Jenny Slate was a case of the book not living up to the beautiful cover.

I’m a fan of Jenny Slate’s so I was really excited when a galley of her new book came in. And then I was so disappointed by the content. This feels like a book that is trying way to hard to be literary and special. It is incredibly overwritten, filled mostly with confusing metaphors and I found myself getting to the end of each piece feeling empty. What she is trying to say gets so lost behind the language she is using. Many of the essays (if they can be called that) revolve around her feelings of being alone and lonely. It felt like she needed to write this book to deal with those feelings but, seeing as they are not unique feelings, I don't believe that it needed to be put out into the world Every once and a while a piece would work for me (usually when Slate stepped back from her flowery writing and just let her thoughts stand on their own) but I would immediately be let down by the next one. I recommend picking this one up to look at the beautiful cover art (there are some fun things hidden in there) and then putting it down and getting something else.

[Imane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too quirky and corny for my tastes. The authorial voice is grating and the run-on sentences were excruciating. From time to time, here and there, something meaningful popped up, but it was soon drowned under a tsunami of self-indulgent monologues toeing the line between fact and fantasy.
At the end of the day I can't blame the author for her idiosyncrasies but I'm not entirely convinced that I am pre-disposed genetically to ever appreciate this type of work.

[Janday · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in one sitting, and was transformed. Yes, I had a transformative experience while in the middle seat of an American Airlines red-eye. This is nonfiction magical realism. Jenny is my witch godmother and this is her spellbook. Jenny’s magic is reaching into the multiverse of her heart, gripping an emotion and pulling it into reality. Emotion-magic is a croissant who makes a wish, a castle named Karen, a dog with flowers on his face. Weird and wonderful and full of discovery, this grimoire is equal parts vulnerability and self-indulgence we don’t normally allow from young women writers. Finally, I, too, love dogs and hate horses.

I read an early, unedited manuscript I obtained as an employee of Hachette Book Group

[Billie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Am I old or is Jenny Slate a lot? Or is it both? Maybe it's both. Whatever it was, this book fucking exhausted me.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The case of a 'little weird' being a tad too weird.
And that vagina was really singing. And dancing. Kidding.

We start at 5 stars:
-> (-1 star) The miraculous singing vagina.
Q:
I Died: The Sad Songs of My Vagina …
My vagina never sang the Andrews Sisters, like it could have. It didn’t even croon out any Perry Como. It was just Jo Stafford “Keep It a Secret” and sometimes it sang “Ghost Town” in a minor key, with a lot of snark. (c)

-> A very bad case of poor understanding of history (-1 star):
Q:
The Code of Hammurabi is one of the first examples of legalized patriarchy, and it instilled these violent and demented ideals: A woman is the property of a man. A woman does not deserve to have as much as a man and she should not ever have as much as a man ever again.
It says that in order for the men to thrive, women must be kept in line and controlled. (c) Actually, there were laws protecting woman's rights and safety. For example: a women who got leprosy was not to be put on the street, a woman was not to be raped... etc. As for controlling women, I imagine, it happened to the society long before the guy even thought of preparing his laws code. Anyway, the Hammurabi Code was not about women, it was about creating a legal society with clear laws, you dolt. It was a step to the modern constitutions and not some anti-fem-bullshit.

-> (-1 star) And don't even get me started on the 'obsidian fallus' bit. How do you look at a column a see a fallus? Freudian or what?

-> The bad (-1 star):
Q:
The can of pineapples was a cousin to the airport hot dog. (c)
Q:
We believe that choice builds strength, and so we have provided a list of approved chat items for you. As we grow more confident in your ability to not secretly shit on yourself all of the time, we shall expand the list. Our hope is that one day, you will not need this list at all, and will be able to speak freely and without the secret sibling of self-abuse and shaming.
But for now, your approved topics are as follows:
“I want to learn to be a better gardener,” “Veal is a bummer and it’s not even that good,” “Library,” “Baryshnikov: any and all performances/his face/his voice/him,” “How to do bagels,” “Swimming in the Atlantic Ocean,” “Swimming in the Pacific Ocean,” “Evergreen trees,” “Why celery is not exactly what you wish,” “Fits of bras,” “Fits of jeans,” “Caves,” “Explain Easter?” “Paper cut stories,” “Grandmothers,” “Mustards of the world,” “The astronaut who wore the diapers so that she didn’t have to stop on her way to murder somebody,” “Snowboarding: I can’t try,” “Aunts and their houses,” “Ghosts, of course,” “Going to the bathroom on the plane or the train,” “Jars,” “Maggots and mold,” “Pumpkin carving,” “Doritos,” “Can a skunk be de-skunked and become a pet or will it be fundamentally gloomy without its stink?” and the follow-up “I love skunk smell, actually.” Furthermore you may access themes around “Grapes,” “Tropical fruits,” “Volcano,” “Cucumber,” “Sesame Street in the past,” “Wars,” and “Gaudí was the One and Only and I love how he stuck fruits and shells into the holy structures he was inspired to create,” “Monochromatic outfits,” “New Year’s resolutions,” “Silk outfits,” “Graves,” “In Peter Pan, did you ever notice that the actor who plays the dad also usually plays Captain Hook? But not in Hook the movie,” “Potluck dinners,” “Swamps, marshes, and bogs,” “What mushrooms do,” “Acrimony,” “Scoliosis,” “Wells and buckets,” and “The amazing Dukakis family.” …
Sincerely yours,
The Office of Internal Affairs (c)
Q:
My colon is now apparently filled with lava? (c)
Q:
I cover my body with a fabric that has been made into a certain shape to help remind you of my butt and vagina, but it does not show the actual butt or vagina that I have. (c)

-> (+1 star) The good:
Q:
Important Questions
I’m humble enough to admit that I don’t know everything and I’m secure enough to ask questions.
Examples:
How can I shrink enough to be small enough to respectfully ride a lamb or dachshund?
What would my body look like (specifically boobs, butt, hair) if I only ate food cooked by bolts of summer lightning?
What happens if I put a spell on a tiny piece of paper, put that into a nectarine, and bury it? What kind of tree could result from this action?
Does the violin know about the cricket? Has a cricket ever lived in a violin?
What if, when I felt a little off, I could flip up the top of my head and sprinkle just a few flowers around my brain and then flip the top of my head back down?
What if a moonbeam gets caught in my soup and I swallow it in a sip and then I always float a little bit off the ground because there is a moonbeam in my stomach?
Can I wrestle on the lawn? Can I sleep on the lawn? Who invented lawns?
Who is more chatty, a squirrel or a seagull?(c)
Q:
I am a geranium that is hardy and wild, but I want to sleep in a neat little pot. I belong in a castle that was built with the determination and ingenuity of a person who was deeply in love.
I feel the warmth vibrating through the centuries and that’s why it is hard to kill me even with a frost. (c)
Q:
One time, my dog sneaked six licks of coffee from my mug. I caught him on the sixth and I’m certain that he would have gone all the way. But I did catch him on the sixth. After he’d had his coffee he went and he stretched out on the armchair and spent a long time by the window, and I thought, “At least he knows how to have coffee properly, even though he is a thief.” (c)
Q:
I want to be a part of a system of power that does not disgust me. I have to give myself many pep talks. I am not sure of what to do most of the time, but I do not want to do what I was doing before. I need a new story, please. I suppose I have to give it to myself. (c)
Q:
My father says, “After a while you understand that you can create and raise the child, but the spirit…the spirit comes from the universe.” (c)
Q:
I was born with a fatal allergy to both subtext and traditional organization techniques and I will tell you I have really had a few near-death experiences. I was born two years ago when one of my friends described me as “the least able-to-be-controlled person that I know,” and I started living right away. (c)
Q:
But when I stop feeling pleasure and stop imagining things I also forget my beliefs, the things that float my spirit on this sea.
When my beliefs float my spirit on the sea, I imagine the depths beneath me and all of the options for life in there. I can feel, with relief, the wideness of the sea. I can remember that things from faraway locations wash up right on your private wedge of sand and present themselves as yours right away. (c)
Q:
I am told that I should try to date online. My reaction to this is that I want to walk away so forcefully that I don’t even pause to open the door, I just go through the wall. I will never ever go into the internet to look for anything that I feel that I really need, except for turtlenecks and sheets and candles, and even then I will do that in a very small circle of places that I know have exactly what I want. (c)
Q:
I am supposed to be touched. I can’t wait to find the person who will come into the kitchen just to smell my neck and get behind me and hug me and breathe me in and make me turn around and make me kiss his face and put my hands in his hair even with my soapy dishwater drips. (c)
Q:
While you are on the walk, if there is a person with a dog, look at the dog and say, “Hi!” Say hi to the dog first. (c)
Q:
You are happy for yourself that you have received the honor of a new day on which to ride. You realize that you love yourself easily in this gravity-free space between the worlds of waking and dreaming.
You are dear to yourself in the morning and it is the morning now. It is very private to have such a love for yourself. Closer, closer to the curtain. (c)
Q:
I look up to you because I love the heavenly bodies of the universe, and the way I see it, your heart is a planet.
Your heart is factually a part of the universe, which is a miracle of endless force and boundless beauty. …
Your heart is a planet. I can see that you are from the sky. (c)
Q:
I am that mysterious stranger that I hoped to meet. I met her at a dark dance. We came here to live together until I could stay by myself.
The place is here. The time is now. This is all my lifetime. (c)

-> (+1 star) Body-positivity:
Q:
Who will let me be the real animal of myself? ...
All day long and in my life after I have this dream, I pet myself in the space that lives under my breasts and down to my waist and I feel calmed when I think of my fur. I sometimes imagine a man petting my fur. I will know him as the man who is allowed to be here because he is the one who will be at ease with my fur and pet me when I am nervous and not be mad at either of the following: that I have not removed my fur and that I live here in this non-dream world where it does feel that often people hunt me for my hide and I am nervous a lot. (c)

The end result is 3 stars.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

"At the premiere screening [of the film '2001: A Space Odyssey'], 241 people walked out of the theater, including [movie star] Rock Hudson, who said 'Will someone please tell me what the hell this is about?'" -- from the IMDb trivia page

The anecdote about Mr. Hudson's frustration popped into my head as I struggled to finish Little Weirds. Actress Jenny Slate's collection of essays seemed way too rambling and/or self-indulgent, and containing absolutely zero "unexpected laughs," although actress Mindy Kaling falsely promises otherwise on a rear cover blurb. And that's a shame - I'm familiar with Ms. Slate from her brief time as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, her numerous guest appearances on the sitcom Parks & Recreation, and her voice work on The Secret Life of Pets animated comedies - so she legitimately seems like a funny actress. Maybe the trick is that someone else is writing her dialogue in those instances. Here, though, her haphazard 48 chapters - with a sprinkle of potshots about the current president (yawn - how stunning and brave of her . . . just like everyone else in the entertainment industry), repeat mentions of misogyny and/or misogynists, and too much lamenting about her unfulfilling dating / love life - were maudlin, insufferable and not amusing at all. I think I've earned a medal - or even just a cookie, thanks - for toughing it out and reading the entire damn thing.

[margot · Rating 5 out of 5]

jenny slate crawled into my brain and personally lobotomized me with this book

[maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading this felt like when you and your friends would close a bar down and stumble to someone’s apartment and it’s rapidly approaching dawn and all conversations are constantly bouncing between incomprehensible gibberish and surprisingly intimate revelations. which is to say - some parts of this really tugged at me and made me go “oh, yes, finally someone put this thing inside of me also into words” but also some parts felt like i was smiling and nodding and waiting for my long winded drunk friend to stop talking.

i fucking love jenny slate 😌❤️

[Cortney - Bookworm & Vine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seriously, what did I just read??

This book was terrible. I went into it knowing it was just essays, but I still thought it was be really good because Jenny Slate is talented and hilarious. You could never have guessed that by reading this rambling nonsense.

Everything was a metaphor, she used a ton of imagery and this descriptive/flowery writing that bordered on poetry.

Her essay "I Died: Listening" was the only shining star in this whole book.

[Jenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jesus Christ, this is overwritten, overwrought trash. Take every stereotype you’ve ever heard about millennials, mix them all together, throw them at a wall, and you’ve got a book! Wahhhh, my boyfriend broke up with me, wahhhh my big house in Massachusetts, wahhhh my private tennis court.... Ugh. I’ve read more insightful word vomit on Thought Catalog. Could not make it past the first quarter of the book. Absolutely tone deaf and insipid. This is the worst thing I’ve ever read. I’m embarrassed for Jenny Slate. If I saw a customer that wasn’t under the age of 22 buying this book, I would rip it out of their hands and forbid them from buying it. It makes Fifty Shades or whatever look well-written.
This book has to be a joke.

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

Looky looky – it’s the annual “Kelly Actually Posts a Review of a Book on #pubday” post!

I don’t really know if Little Weirds will work for everyone, but boy oh boy did it work for me. To begin with, let’s take a gander at the cover . . . .



Oh, it’s just so perfect. And the insides pretty much match the outside. It’s just a jumble of truly “little weirds” conjured up by Jenny Slate’s oddball brain. (Spoiler alert: I had no clue she was such a wordsmith, but wowza does she know how to use gajillions of the entries that can be found in the nearest Webster’s.) Basically, this is the literary equivalent of . . . .



Delightful.

Now to be very clear, I have had a massive girlcrush on Jenny Slate for quite some time. From her accidental dropping of an F Bomb on my standing Saturday night television watching date . . . .



(Which, unfortunately, led to her promptly being fired).

To her stealing the scene as a guest star on another fave, Parks and Rec . . . .



To her voiceover work . . . .



To me trying to figure out how to rob a Brink’s armored truck in order to buy her childhood home that is currently on the market . . . .



(And don’t even ask the level of commitment my stalkery has taken that I discovered that bit of information because I don’t even remember.)

To her drunken narration of the invention of Coca-Cola . . . . .



To her new stand-up special on Netflix – I simply adore her and I adored everything about this book – so much so that I’m breaking the rules and posting a taste despite receiving an advanced copy . . . .

A Tender Thief

One time, my dog sneaked six licks of coffee from my mug. I caught him on the sixth and I’m certain that he would have gone all the way. But I did catch him on the sixth. After he’d had his coffee he went and he stretched out on the armchair and spent a long time by the window, and I thought, “At least he knows how to have coffee properly, even though he is a thief.”

Buy the book if you want, don’t buy the book if you don’t want, I don’t really care. I’m just happy to have these little weirds in my own life. However, you all should do yourself a favor and watch Jenny define a “Shit Show” . . . . .

https://twitter.com/drunkhistory/stat...



ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

[el · Rating 3 out of 5]

if i had to describe my reading experience in one phrase, i would call it a hand-drawn urban outfitters coloring book

[Lauren Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book you're either going to fall in love with, or absolutely hate. At first, I thought I'd side with hate. A few sentences in, I was like god this is so flowery and pretentious, just say what you're trying to say!!! But then I realized this isn't like books that are flowery in a pretentious way, and that flowery is okay if it's genuine and the author's real voice. Every word on every page screams "Jenny Slate wrote me" and this book is so undeniably HER that it CAN'T be pretentious, because it is real. It's not a memoir in the sense that she takes you through a linear story with any kind of beginning, middle, or end, and most chapters aren't things she actually experienced, but instead are essays or just sheer nonsense that you can't even begin to make out on the first or second read (or EVER), but you know that SHE means something with them, and at these moments, it's like yes, this book is written by her, FOR HER. Very little of this is about appealing to readers in the sense of wanting to impress. It's about the author putting pieces of herself on paper and it just happens to be published and we just happen to be reading it. But it's not for us, and so many people who enter this weird little world will be instantly turned off, but if something clicks with you, it's worth staying for the whole thing because maybe something else will click too. Not everything in this book clicked for me, but it's still worth all five stars because I've never read anything as uniquely belonging to a single human person before, and even when I didn't understand what she was trying to say, I know SHE got it, and while that doesn't always make for the best book for all readers to enjoy, I kinda enjoy that this didn't matter to her at all.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does anyone have a more distinct voice than Jenny Slate? This book of what I will call micro essays (micro memoir?) discuss a lot of topics from small observations, relationships and dating, silliness, feminism, and childhood. My absolute favorite is the one where she died listening.

Thanks to the publisher for giving me access through Edelweiss. It comes out November 5, 2019.

[Sydelle Keisler · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. Little Weirds is an endless collection of stories/essays that all boil down to the same thesis: Jenny Slate, by her own description, is exceptionally tiny and too pure for this world. I want to get a PDF version and “ctrl F” for the words “tiny,” “tender,” “little,” and “delicate.” That seems to be the only way she can describe herself! Like, I get it, you’re a sweet woodland creature in a big scary world! Enough!! Every ounce of this was saccharine and self-indulgent. I could have probably enjoyed a few of these essays in isolation, but the repetition made it tortuous. Forcing myself to finish this book, and feeling that I really wasted my own time, has inspired my new outlook for the summer: I don’t have to finish all the books that I start!

[casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

how manic pixie dream girls look when a real quirky girl (jenny slate) comes at them…

jenny is whimsy through and through, the kind that sometimes i cant wrap my head around but in other cases is so tender and cathartic. much of what i love about her work is how shes able to pull such big feelings out of you in a way that (and this isnt a dig i swear lol) feels childlike and understated, and this book isn’t an exception. it’s why despite not being able to fully get down with her writing style i still enjoyed this :)

p.s there’s a 99% chance i will be rewatching marcel the shell with shoes on tonight

[Claire Reads Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenny Slate has such an earnest and pure and sometimes daffy worldview – read cynically, I can see this book setting off many an eye-roll, but if you take it in with an open heart, it is, for the most part, full of generosity and vulnerability, particularly regarding heartbreak, loneliness, wanting, love, and getting older.

[. · Rating 1 out of 5]

So I hated this book and Imma tell you why, in order:
1) White women and their whole "I'm so tender, I'm just a little flower, I am one with nature." Why don't you be one with fucking PEOPLE. Like why is your perfect world only you, instead of trying to bring other people into it?
2) Not everyday "I just want a man." How you call yourself a feminist but your book wouldn't pass the Bechdel test? Grow up.
3) And speaking OF feminism! Her fucking 90s Girl Power Feminism was so damn annoying. This is going back to point one but nobody loves to talk about their genitalia more than a white woman who calls herself a Feminist. It's like are we more than our bodies or are we ONLY our bodies? Make a decision!
There's more I hate and when I remember I WILL come back to this review.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐️

Not really my cup of tea. It’s surreal and not what I expected. It’s not bad it just wasn’t really something I necessarily enjoyed or learned much from.

There were some really interesting lines and ideas in here, but also a lot of “nonsense.” In quotations because it was nonsense to me and may not be so for others.

[Cindy Holland · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to this book but I guess in book form the narcissism gets super grating. Her prose can be lovely but really needs to vary the subject matter to anything other than herself. Sorry to be a hater....

[Rachelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'd rather live with a tender heart, because that is the key to feeling the beat of all of the other hearts."

This little book is weird indeed, but it is also lyrical, vulnerable, and beautiful! Jenny Slate opened up her inner weirds and I'm so glad she shared them. ❤️

"You walk forward,
you keep your head angled up,
so that you see over the fray,
you protect yourself and all the little weirds that make up who you are."

[disco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenny Slate's mind is like a dreamscape, one that we will never predict nor need to.

[shruti · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I am supposed to be touched. I can’t wait to find the person who will come into the kitchen just to smell my neck and get behind me and hug me and breathe me in and make me turn around and make me kiss his face and put my hands in his hair even with my soapy dishwater drips. I am a lovely woman. Who will come into my kitchen and be hungry for me?”

this was such a delight to read. thank you Jenny for putting into words your wonderfully weird, whimsical thoughts & daydreams in the sweetest and quirkiest way possible.

edit- giving this book 5 stars bc i think about it quite often

[Laudan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jenny Slate > Little Weirds.
First I'd like to say that I really like Jenny Slate and her work as an actress and comedian. She's funny, weird and embraces her odd-ballness and that's great. This book, however- is just TOO WEIRD to really get into. I love essays and creativity and symbolism and metaphors and all that fun stuff but this book takes all of those to a whole other level that is just TOO, TOO MUCH to enjoy. I wanted to like this book, I purchased it right away without reading even a single review (my mistake) and midway through I realized that this was an impulsive buy and not something that I would find much substance within. I think Jenny Slate missed a great opportunity here-- she could have taken her weird writing down about 10 decibels and written some truly great personal essays. I would have liked to hear more normal versions about her haunted childhood home, her breakups, friendships and especially her relationship with Chris Evans (along with every other red-blooded American woman) and less of her kissing rabbits. A lot of WTF reading going on in this one. Just because you get a creative burst to write when you're stoned out of your mind, doesn't mean you should get published.
Pass on this one.

[Lindsay Nixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 30%

best described as someone’s very bizarre stream of consciousness after a lot of marijuana

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Look! Look at this woman who is both the emergency and the relief. Let me be both (I have no choice.) Give in. Fall apart. Look at the pieces. Reassemble. This is the essential movement of my holy flux."

this book is the best friend that gives u a big, long hug and tells u that everything's gonna be okay but also tells u to get dressed, get out of ur house, and get ur shit together. i loved it.

It feels like Jenny Slate wrung her soul out into this book. And what a weird, beautiful little book it turned out to be.

Little Weirds is a deeply personal book; it's also a deeply moving book. Really, it's the former that allows for the latter. Its title is a perfect encapsulation of what you'll get inside it: stories short and long, weird in small and not-so-small ways. And Slate is such a talented writer, so good at a surrealist, off-center kind of writing that only serves to make the emotion at the root of her stories all the more affecting.

Some of my favourite quotes (and I was listening to this on audiobook too so the fact that I got a hold of these quotes is a Big Deal):

"I see it. I know it. That natures makes art and I am a creation and I make things. This is an expansive fact that I could never measure, and it calms me. The elemental companionship of light and air make it so beautiful on those leaves that when I turn in my chair to really look, the leaves are just there existing, and I feel my heart break even more and I say, Good, let it fall away, and look, look, everything is always remaking itself and so are you. Everything is art and nature and so are you."

"Very boring, very lonely, very tired, again. It was hard to feel anything, except I am not one of the creatures who will experience anything precious."

well. that, uh, hit close to home.

One more thing: this book is a perfect companion piece to Slate's Netflix special, Jenny Slate: Stage Fright. Consume them in whatever order you want, but I think your experience of one will be very much enhanced if you see/read the other.