Confessions of a Semi-Natural Woman: Mostly True Tales of a Woman under the Influence of Laughter
By Leigh Anne Jasheway
http://www.accidentalcomic.com/books/confessions.php
Reviewed by Anne L. Holmes for the NABBW

Leigh Anne Jasheway, winner of the Erma Bombeck Award for Humor Writing has done it again. Her latest book, a compilation of over 90 of her previously published columns, will have you laughing out loud.

And I do mean laughing in a very unladylike manner – perhaps even snorting and gasping for air. According to the book’s back cover, as you read, “It wouldn’t be bad advice to strap on a pair of adult diapers, just in case.”

The columns are drawn from Jasheway’s all-too-true funny life. Which isn’t too surprising.

Who else would be able to write about personal experiences such as being:

• Left behind in the grip of a mammogram while the technician yells “Fire!” and leaves the room…
• Laughed at by vacationers as she pushes her grey-muzzled wiener dogs in their strollers on the beach…
• Passed by kindergartners as she pedals her comfortable bike around the neighborhood…
• Enrolled in a Strippersize class and trying not to fall down laughing…

Not to mention that she’s also written about her experiences:

• Walking through the King Tut exhibit with bloody feet because she forgot to pack comfortable shoes…
• Praying the people at the craft store do an intervention on her behalf…
• Setting off the smoke alarm while taking a relaxing bath…
• Being called a Cougar and not being at all happy about it…

To give you a  sense of what you’re in for in reading this book, here are just a few of the column titles…

• With Three You Get Milkbones
• Wii? Oui!
• This Bedroom is From Mars and Venus
• I’m Too Sexy for My Skirt
• Pasty and Proud
• Tuck Those Puppies In
• Pee in this Box
• Smile and Say “Botox”
• Liar, Liar, Bras on Fire
  

This is a perfect book for anyone who took Jasheway’s advice and made New Year’s resolutions that included activities like:

• Doubling the number of out loud laughs you get every day
• Making a list of things that turn on your giggles and doing one thing on the list every day
• Asking, “What’s funny about this?” the next time something unplanned happens
• Really laughing out loud every time you type or text “LOL”
• Making one more friend this year with whom you regularly laugh

Hey, you can guarantee yourself a giggle just by reading one column a day. That is, if you can manage to limit yourself to JUST one. But be advised, these columns are the literary equivalent of potato chips. Limiting yourself to enjoying just one column a day might be impossible.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I know these things. After all, Leigh Anne is NABBW’s Boomer Humor Expert…

Originally Published on NABBW.com

Anne Holmes Boomer-in-Chief of NABBW