Jenny Slate

'Magical' - Mindy Kaling 'Delicious' - Amy Sedaris 'Funny and poignant and beautiful' - John Mulaney 'It made me remember I was alive' - George Saunders To see the world through Jenny Slate's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility. As she will remind you, we live on an ancient ball that rotates around a bigger ball made up of lights and gases that are science gases, not farts (don't be immature). Heartbreak, confusion and misogyny stalk this blue-green sphere, yes, but it is also a place of wild delight and unconstrained vitality, a place where we can start living as soon as we are born, and we can be born at any time. In her dazzling, impossible-to-categorize debut, Jenny channels the pain and beauty of life in writing so fresh, so new and so burstingly alive, we catch her vision like a fever and bring it back out into the bright day with us, and everything has changed.

Little Weirds

Let me be your morning treat with your coffee. 

Kaia Mann

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. There is literally no way that you are not part of that. Despair can force you to turn your eyes away from this fact, but it is the real truth and it will be waiting to be with you when you are free enough to turn back to it. Your heart is a planet. I can see that you are from the sky.

Hello, I live in a constant state of growth and regeneration without being obsessed with the threat of decay.

There is a feeling that by doing the natural thing of growing up, I have carelessly waltzed away from a mess. It feels that I have disowned my tribe by choosing to believe that the world is full of creatures and spirits rather than predators and ghosts

tiff <3

Connie Meade

Patrick Book

This is largely a bunch of whimsical (and imaginative and inspiringly creative) rambles, which is very nice. But I enjoyed it most when Slate combined that whimsy with actual tangible stories of reality.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Step into Jenny Slate's wild, unfiltered imagination in this "magical" (Mindy Kaling), "delicious" (Amy Sedaris), and "poignant" (John Mulaney) collection about love, heartbreak, and being alive -- "this book is something new and wonderful" (George Saunders). You may "know" Jenny Slate from her new Netflix special, "Stage Fright," or as the creator of Marcel the Shell, or as the star of "Obvious Child." But you don't really know Jenny Slate until you get bonked on the head by her absolutely singular writing style. To see the world through Jenny's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility. As she will remind you, we live on an ancient ball that rotates around a bigger ball made up of lights and gasses that are science gasses, not farts (don't be immature). Heartbreak, confusion, and misogyny stalk this blue-green sphere, yes, but it is also a place of wild delight and unconstrained vitality, a place where we can start living as soon as we are born, and we can be born at any time. In her dazzling, impossible-to-categorize debut, Jenny channels the pain and beauty of life in writing so fresh, so new, and so burstingly alive, we catch her vision like a fever and bring it back out into the bright day with us, and everything has changed.

Ryan Mateyk

POPSUGAR 2020: A book whose title caught your attention

Reading this book is to get to know Jenny Slate. She is completely charming and absolutely a treasure. The way she writes is so new and feels like she's spilling her guts to you. It was so easy to read this and visualize her in my head because it's written in her very unique voice. She is the only person capable of writing this - it's just very her. It's little, it's weird, and worth the read. Boink!

Maria

in many ways this book felt like a hug. there were certain parts that made me genuinely tear up, i appreciate how openly vulnerable and honest jenny slate is. truly glad i picked this up.

Jun Angelo Cabuguas

while i enjoyed reading the whole thing, the last half of this book i really enjoyed. lots of great and resonating chapters, blue hour and the death about a bronze tree were probably my favorite ones that i remember.

jenny slate is so funny and insightful and creative. maybe the most beautiful delightful little book i’ve ever read. i was deeply moved

petrina

If you’re a weird human who needs to feel seen: just put down whatever you’re reading and read this instead.

erin alise 

A strange and precious thing. It needs to be held by a strange and precious person in order to be known and appreciated for what it is, “an example of a specific way of spending time and feeling existence in this world.”

sybil

Benjamin Harlow

kaitlan

my favorite of 2022, at least so far, hands down and most definitely

Lane Hokanson

Honestly, I hated it. It felt pedantic and forced, like a high school prompt for a short essay. I found very little to be insightful or interesting and most of it to be banal.

Alexa M

i really really enjoyed and resonated with most of this but not some i didnt really care for so 4 stars! really glad i picked this up and would read more from Jenny in the future.

brianna

just had a 221 page long deeply intimate conversation with jenny slate… feeling very emotionally distraught. she is so special to me actually

lea da silva

this book is just so warm and open. jenny slate’s style is unique and incredibly vivid. i love how she sees the world and the way she shares that view with her readers

Cindy Lieberman

An aptly titled short collection of musings, reflections, and observations. The author reads the audiobook. 
Jenny Slate is a comedian although this book tends to be more insightful than overtly funny (but very funny in parts too). She writes about love and societal expectations, loneliness, dreams, being divorced, her dog, her friends, and about discovering herself again. A very original voice with enjoyably quirky material.

This is everything I've ever wanted to read and write. Whimsical, darling, and a glimpse into the in-betweens.

Deyana

'Magical' - Mindy Kaling'Delicious' - Amy Sedaris'Funny and poignant and beautiful' - John Mulaney'It made me remember I was alive' - George SaundersTo see the world through Jenny Slate's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility. As she will remind you, we live on an ancient ball that rotates around a bigger ball made up of lights and gases that are science gases, not farts (don't be immature). Heartbreak, confusion and misogyny stalk this blue-green sphere, yes, but it is also a place of wild delight and unconstrained vitality, a place where we can start living as soon as we are born, and we can be born at any time. In her dazzling, impossible-to-categorize debut, Jenny channels the pain and beauty of life in writing so fresh, so new and so burstingly alive, we catch her vision like a fever and bring it back out into the bright day with us, and everything has changed.

Ella

this book took me two years to finish. it’s been through so much with me but left me with the knowledge that i still have so much growth ahead of me. little weirds is such a beautiful piece of art that succeeded in changing me for the better and providing tiny bursts of hope and love which i rarely have the pleasure of experiencing. 

thank you jenny 💖

grace

this is the most comforting book i’ve ever read :)

“we looked at each other in that back seat and could have died then from such radical happiness”

reread: this book is so incredible

Sage

Sarah Smith

I don't really know what I expected, but I can tell you I didn't expect to sob in my bathtub.

Elizabeth Moore

So when I’m really bewitched by something, a manic gremlin habit creeps up from my depths. I stop what I’m thinking, go to the Reviews section (or whatever troll arena comments section exists because one exists for every single place in which a human can attempt to be vulnerable in this day and age), and I look for the worst comments I can find - opinions that would happily eviscerate my own gentle and joyful opinion if they got too close.

And then I rage, and double down on my opinion, and stamp my feet and flare my nostrils and shout things like “well you just have no soul and no empathy and you clearly hold deep-seated envy and feelings of inadequacy and HOW DARE YOU!” It’s quite odd and probably not incredibly healthy, and it’s also exactly what I did when I finished this book quietly explosive, messy, shimmery, weird, wise, and unabashedly vulnerable little treasure. I loved this book and will come back to it often.

Little Weirds is most likely not for 85% of humans, and it is EXTREMELY not for about 30% of humans a fine sampling of whom I believe posted all the alarmingly enraged reviews of this book (seriously how can you be that mad over a book that takes 6 hours to read? Who marked you deeply and told you that you could never share your feelings or delights or deepest fears with the world? Did you stop to consider that this book may have been written to lovingly tell you that, in fact, you certainly could?), but for the little section of creatures for whom this book so very much IS, it’s just glorious. It’s frightening how easy it is to just “get” Jenny Slate’s strange, wonderful, wholly unique ramblings of a life very personal to her, just like it were your own. You can read these words and paragraphs and stories and metaphors that don’t even seem humanly possible or sensical in and fashion and then realize that they are just perfect and how did you not know they were always wandering around inside your brain?

Jenny Slate says and lays bare all the things you think and feel but don’t give yourself permission to think and feel out loud. She insists that you can be grateful and a fan of yourself and propelled by a lot of luck and obvious privilege while still feeling alone, misunderstood, and yearning for love sometimes. She dares you to say it’s not OK to shout joyful sentences about communing with nature, and about being wild, and about all of those weird dreams you have that normal people tell you don’t make good dinner talk. And she refuses to let it go that patriarchy and the shit women are forced to go through are both really fucked and not cool, and I just really appreciate that.

I think Slate’s book of strange essays, weird stories, little heartbeats and mind waltzes is just wonderful, and I’ll find myself reaching for it over and over and over again in all my years to come. Unless or until at least my head falls off and rolls away, or I’m struck by lightning twice, or I melt into a melted chair.

Alithea

3.5
Reading some lines i thought “hm, looks like something lispector would write” (lispector was mentioned too btw)

as the title suggests, an accumulation of small ramblings that crack you open and invite you to bleed with it. a book that asks nothing of you but to eat your fill and take something home with you

elif sinem

Often too mushy for my tastes, other times, its topic is approached in a shallow manner (read: a white liberal feminist way) BUT most of the prose and some of its imagery is excellent and I see why the girls are obsessed with it. The haunted house essay (?) was the best by a long shot.

Little Weirds

Reviews

Highlights