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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't begin to live up to her other books, May 20, 2006
I adored Jenny's first two books. Before I explain what made this one so bad, recall what made the first two so great: you could really relate to them! They made you laugh because you had been there yourself. Even if you came from a completely different background than Jen--religious, sexual, and cultural--you could still totally relate to everything in those books because pregnancy and motherhood are such universal experiences.
Not so with Life Laughs. For starters, enjoy the picture of her kid on the cover, because that's about all the "motherhood" Jen covers in this book. Out of 45 chapters, only one directly focuses on parenting. If you, like me, bought this book hoping for at least a partial continuation of the first two books and some juicy, hilarious anecdotes about the challenges of trying to parent a toddler in the real world, then you're going to be disappointed.
A better subtitle for the book would have been "The Naked Truth About Multiple Sexual Partners, Marriage and Moving On," because that's really what the book was about. If you've never slept around rampantly or faked your way through endless nights of tedious and unwanted sex, then you'll probably have a hard time relating to the brunt of this book, because that's what it's really about.
Jen is open and honest with her audience as always, and she'll doubtless cover material that you will still be able to relate to. Some of it is even funny. But overall the book feels hurried and disjointed--and the typos and grammatical errors don't impress much, either. Wherever Jenny is, I hope she someday reaches deep inside and brings out for us again that witty, laugh-out-loud hilarious woman we all know is in there. Because this isn't it.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Girls Night Out, November 1, 2006
Like the author, Jenny McCarthy, I was also raised Catholic in a Chicago suburb and attended Southern Illinois University. This is what compelled me to read "Life Laughs," her third book. She starts out the essay collection with a warning, preparing readers for her "honesty," as she discusses a variety of personal topics in a brash, "crude, raw, and sometimes dirty" manner. Truly, it's an honest description of her simple, conversational writing.
The first three quarters of the column-like compositions focus on marriage, and there are several woman vs. man scenarios typical to new relationships. As the marriage ages, the child is born, body parts start to sag, and then one day she rolls over in bed "and saw a nose with hair sticking out that was snoring with some pretty bad morning breath." There's no linear pattern to the collection, it's sort of random and all over the place, as Jenny goes places others fear to tread. Not knowing what to expect on the next page (a page that might include a caricature of Jenny falling into a toilet) added to the entertainment.
Throughout the hour or so it took me to read this bawdy little book, I felt like I was out for drinks with my funniest friends (it wasn't the book club, but definitely the bunco group) and even though I laughed out loud a few times, I have to admit, this gal also managed to bring out my inner prude. "Life Laughs," by Jenny McCarthy is for 30-something women the way "I Feel Bad About My Neck," by Nora Ephron is for 50-something women. She reminds us of the importance of laughing at ourselves, and she's willing to bare it all--even a seeming underlying pain--to do so.
Michele Cozzens is the author of It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, June 6, 2006
3rd book and just as great as the other 2 you just gotta love Jenny she just tells it how it is! Funny, funny, funny!!!!!!!
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