Jen Lancaster Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Jen Lancaster is an American author that was living the high life in the corporate arena before being laid off and nearly losing everything she held so dear to her heart.

That particular struggle drove her to write a series of blog posts and then memoirs which transformed her into a New York Times Bestselling author.

+Biography

Jen Lancaster’s fans always praise her for her comedic skills. Growing up, Jen did not know she was funny. She knew she had a big mouth. The things she said always got her into trouble.

It wasn’t until she got to college that Jen realized she was funny. It would be several more years before she learned to utilize that skill. Jen’s reading habits were a little unconventional as a child.

By the time she was nine, the author had nurtured a strange love for essayists. She gravitated towards people like Andy Rooney who wrote with a conversational style that was easy to read.

She tried to reproduce those same styles in her high school newspaper, though the author admits that she wasn’t the easiest person to work with. Jen Lancaster believes that she has spent a long time trying and failing to grow up.

And it is because of the ridiculous antics she has been pulling since her birth in 1967 that she has so much material for her memories. In high school, Jen Lancaster was always pushing the envelope.

She always wanted to see how much controversy she could get past her editor, and many of her high school classmates read their newspaper every week just to keep up with her silliness.

Jen initially thrived as an adult. She came up during the internet explosion. Everyone was going into the Dot-Com business and making waves. So Jen followed suit, and for a while, she lived the high life.

The author rose through the ranks to become the Associate Vice president of a technology company. She was making a lot of money and she could afford to indulge in many an expensive habit.

But then everything went to the toilet after 9/11. The unthinkable happened. Jen Lancaster was laid off and she was forced to face the harsh reality she had sidestepped for so long.

Initially, the idea of taking smaller jobs repulsed her. But then she realized she had no choice but to compromise her standards, especially at a time when even her boyfriend was struggling financially.

Strangely enough, though, years spent in the Dot-Com business did not leave Jen with any skills of note, and she found that she wasn’t eligible for even the small jobs she looked down on.

So Jen started to write. She created a blog that she used to express her frustration. The author was just looking for an outlet. But after a few months, Jen found that she loved to write.

It occurred to her that someone might be willing to give her money to write. So she sat down and produced a memoir about her rise and fall in the Dot-Com era. The book was a big hit.

People seemed to love Jen Lancaster’s conversational style of writing and self-deprecating humor. They also loved the openness with which she spoke about herself. She wasn’t afraid to tackle her body images issues and the struggles she had faced in her effort to lose weight.

And she found that by writing about her life, she was able to think about her problems from new perspectives. The author has since abandoned the memoir business. According to Jen, memoirs are only relevant when you have problems in your life, and the author hasn’t had problems since her literary career exploded.

So she has since turned her attention to writing novels. Though, she does admit that her first novel (If You Were Here) was based on herself and her husband. The book did not appeal to fans quite like she hoped.

Because she based so many elements of the characters on her own life, and because her fans couldn’t figure out what was real and what wasn’t, they refused to support the author’s debut novel.

As such, Jen Lancaster has been working hard to write true fiction. She wants to get as far away from her life as possible.

Jen Lancaster is an open person. So most of her fans know that she loves pearls and will even wear them to the gym; they know that she loves fast cars but drives very slowly, so they are wasted on her.

The author hates public bathrooms and doesn’t care how clean they appear to be. She is a self-confessed grammar Nazi who is frequently incensed by the smallest of grammatical errors.

That is despite the fact that she makes many such small mistakes herself. Jen counts 1990s gangster rap amongst her passions. The author loves to write about her husband Fletch in her memoirs, even if she knows that he never readers her books.

+Bitter is the New Black

This book is a Greek tragedy of sorts that follows a snobby former sorority girl who lived the high life and then saw her life crumble. The book is technically a memoir of Jen Lancaster.

Like her heroine, Jen was haughty and stuck up. She had all the money in the world and spent it senselessly. Then she lost her job and her house and realized that it was possible to find the humor in even the darkest of times.

The book tends to divide audiences. The readers who hate it point to Jen Lancaster as the primary cause. They think she’s horrendous and annoying and that she deserves everything that happens to her.

The author’s fans, on the other hand, love how honest she is about her previously cruel and haughty attitudes and the fact that she isn’t afraid to explore the humbling moments of her life.

+Pretty in Plaid

Pretty in Plaid is a Jen Lancaster book that gives readers further insight into the girl she used to be and the woman she became. It is actually Jen’s fourth memoir and it uses new anecdotes to show her rise, fall, and rise.

The book has been criticized for being a little thin on content, mostly because Jen’s first three memories covered everything there was to know about Jen’s early fortunes, her eventual unemployment and the hard times that gave her an attitude adjustment.