Book Review: Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster

I enjoyed this book so much that I felt the need to write a book review.  The full title of this book, including the subtitle is: Bitter is the New Black, Confessions of a condescending, egomaniacal, self-centered Smart-ass, or why you should never carry a Prada Bag to the unemployment office – a memoir by Jen Lancaster.  I wish I could remember where I heard about this book, but my memory fails me at this moment.  I do believe, however, that it was recommended by a man on some website – kind of strange because it really is a “chick book.”  I needed to read something purely for enjoyment purposes and this book fit the bill perfectly. 

I love shopping and I love clothes, shoes and purses – but I don’t shop much anymore because my pocketbook (well, the content of my wallet, to be more specific) has changed since I became a mom, and a stay-at-home mom at that.  I’ve never been into “having” to have big names like Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, etc. (yeah, right – I just could never afford them!) but I like to think that I know quality and I’ve always preferred to buy quality products.  Thus, I had a sneaking suspicion that I would enjoy this book.

The back cover describes the book as a story of how a “…haughty former sorority girl went from having a nice six-figure income to being evicted from a ghetto apartment…It’s a modern Greek tragedy in which the central character [Jen Lancaster, the author] suffers serious misfortune that’s not accidental and therefore meaningless, but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected.  In other words?  The bitch had it coming.”

Jen Lancaster (hereinafter referred to as Jen) is a very fun writer; she writes with wit, intelligence, and humor in a no-holds-barred kind of way. It is a memoir and it is her telling her story as if she’s talking to you. Throughout the pages, you find footnote numbers and at the bottom of each page the corresponding footnote(s), which are usually further explanations of something she just said. She could have just as easily added another sentence or even wrote the footnote in parentheses within the sentence, but the way she chose to do it makes it very entertaining. Here’s one example from one of the earlier chapters:

She’s recounting to a friend a time when she saw a homeless man holding a Coach briefcase and she needed to rescue it from him, so she convinced him that her lunch was an even trade for it. Her other friend reminds her that she forgot a significant detail and she then sighs and says “…OK, maybe the trade wasn’t quite so fair. Because I…uh…uh…I told him the wasabi peas were crack rocks.”⁴

The footnote read: “Oh, relax. I gave a totally big donation to the local food bank as soon as I started making big commissions.”

The story is based on real life events from Jen’s life, with a few liberties taken to keep it moving, and a few things taken out of sequence. Jen assures the reader, though, that she really was as bad as she portrays herself.

Jen is a 30-something living in Chicago at the height of the dot-com boom. She works for a couple of different large companies in management and later VP positions. She has a large salary and a boyfriend who’s also enjoying a nice paying job in the computer field. Jen is the type of person who cares about her appearance and, to an even larger extent, what others think of her. She and her boyfriend, Fletch (whom she does later marry in a hilarious turn of events), live in a penthouse apartment and she likes to buy ridiculously expensive things like couches that no one dare sit on, just so that she can impress visitors.

Jen’s credit cards are racked up to their limits and she barely has any savings.  She enjoys regular salon and spa visits and loves buying new shoes and purses, even if it is hard to match that brown and lavender Kate Spade to any outfit.  She would not be caught dead in a track suit, even if it is just for a quick jaunt to the grocery store.  Jen is a bitch.  She speaks her mind without regard for the feelings of others and she thinks, and acts like, she is better that she is at everything.

Then one day the dot-com bubble burst and she was out of a job.  Then Fletch lost his job.  No matter what she did, no one would hire her.  She began to realize that she’d have to accept a lesser job with a lower salary than what she was accustomed to and she must “dumb-up” her resume so that she didn’t lose jobs for being over-qualified. 

She initially thought that receiving unemployment compensation was akin to welfare and would not even consider “lowering” herself to that until it was explained to her that it comes from the fund that she so generously has paid into out of every paycheck she ever got. So … she decides to visit the unemployment office and brings along her attitude AND her Prada Bag – a mistake.

She ends up being unemployed for a couple of years, they have to give up the penthouse and cars and ultimately she and Fletch must change their ways and stop living beyond their means, especially when they came within an inch of being homeless without a penny to their names. Jen started a blog during her unemployment called Jennsylvania, which became very popular (and still is) and cost her a prestigious job (because she bashed every company who did not hire her, many of which were large clients for other companies she was trying to get hired with), but ultimately jump started her writing career.

I just finished this book and I can’t wait to pick up the next, Bright Lights, Big Ass:A Self-Indulgent, Surly Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why it Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are All These Idiots and Why Do They Live Next Door to Me?

After that comes Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big; Or, Why Pie Is Not the Answer and Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase.

The latest release (May 2010) is My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or, a Culture-Up Manifesto.