Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, Or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomanical, Self-Centered Smart Ass Phase by Jen Lancaster

From Barnes & Noble

As the subtitle attests, Jen Lancaster doesn't mince words. The author of Such a Pretty Fat and Bright Lights, Big Ass has returned with a book that will have you howling and nodding in nostalgic agreement. Pretty in Plaid is the prequel to Bitter Is the New Black and shares that memoir's keen sense of the absurd. According to Lancaster, her entire trek from Junior Girl Scout to the corporate world was punctuated by mishaps, bad choices, and fashion faux pas. Hilarious, heartwarming, and strangely wise.

From the Publisher

The hardcover debut from the New York Times bestselling author- the prequel to Bitter is the New Black.

In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be.

Think Jen Lancaster was always "like David Sedaris with pearls and a super-cute handbag?" (Jennifer Coburn) Think again. She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this humorous and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life-and wardrobe-before bitter was the new black and shows us a young woman not so very different than the rest of us.

The author who showed us what it was like to wait in line at the unemployment office with a Prada bag, how living in the city can actually suck, and that losing weight can be fun with a trainer named Barbie and enough Ambien is ready to take you on a hilarious and heartwarming trip down memory lane in her shoes (and very pretty ones at that).

Publishers Weekly

In this memoir of a fashion-conscious life, Lancaster revisits her misadventures—and outfits over the years (from Girl Scout sash to Gucci purse)—with characteristic snarky humor. You have to hand it to Lancaster: you could find her younger self utterly insufferable, if it weren't for the fact that her present-day self is so clear-eyed about and obviously amused by her past behavior. Jamie Heinlein reads with just the right amount of confident, bubbly obliviousness inflected with a dash of wry knowingness. As is typical in the best professionally read audio memoirs, Heinlein recreates Lancaster so perspicaciously, it's easy to become convinced that Heinlein is Lancaster. An NAL hardcover. (May)

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