Live Fast Die Hot by Jenny Mollen

This blog post will be pretty short because the book is exactly what you think it is- funny, honest, and easy to read. Jenny Mollen is a c-list celebrity, mother, Twitter professional, and wife of Jason Biggs. This is actually her second book. Her first book, I Like You Just the Way I Am (2014), was all the same bit funny and honest but I read it well before the existence of this blog. You do not need to read the first book at all to understand and appreciate this one.

While I Like You Just the Way I Am focuses on Mollen's dating life and eventual settling down with Biggs while stalking his ex-girlfriends, Live Fast Die Hot focuses on her becoming a mother for the first time to her son, Sid Biggs. I really enjoyed this book because Mollen had a lot of anxiety about becoming a parent (something Meg and I discuss 90% of the time) so it was humbling to see how she developed as a mother- she's also now expecting baby #2!

Jason Biggs, Sid Biggs & Jenny Mollen (Sid always appears wearing sunglasses or with his eyes blacked out in the media, I assume for privacy.) I think they are one of the cutest media families ever.

Without even trying (I think) there are a lot of funny parts about dogs in this book. I love dogs. Mollen's dog Teets has been around well before Mollen was famous and there is a sad bit about Teets being diagnosed with cancer, but then makes a miraculous recovery... twice. Mollen is hilarious as she outlines this... personifying Teets as almost manipulating her into spoiling him when he is sick but then pulling through after all. Meg and I personify animals all the time so we are definitely having this narrative. She also mentions how she was almost ready for Teets to pass when she was welcoming Sid, because she felt torn to split her attention, but Teets perservered. There is also a great bit about Biggs' demonic dog who she gives away to a girl on Instagram, as well as her mother's dog:

Part of becoming an adult means coming to terms with the fact that your mother's dog is living the childhood you always wanted. It's not his fault; he just lucked out and met her in a more enlightened time. She was finally ready for responsibility. She'd had a few trial runs (with me and my sister), killed a few plants, and was at last open to the idea of constantly feeding and watering and wiping someone's ass with baby wipes. Rocky was living the childhood I always wanted."

My sister and I complain about this all the time. Our family dog Lenny is allowed to do whatever the frig he wants where my sister and I still face real punishments well into our twenties.

Mollen and Biggs' pregnancy announcement for baby #2. Mollen told her son that babies are made by the mom sucking the dad's snot from his nose.

I also have always appreciated the realistic tone Mollen takes regarding her marriage. She is never hurtful or insulting, and it's clear she loves Biggs, but she is down to make fun of him and exploit his insecurities. I appreciate this in a couple as I really hate cutesy couples that can never poke fun at each other or sit seperately. I particularly had a good laugh at this passage:

Jason was snoring behind the wall of seventeen pillows he used to protect himself for me while he was unconscious. He claimed he needed the pillows for back support , but I suspect if I'd Sharpied fewer dicks on him in the beginning of our marriage, his back would feel fine."

The best part about this book that was very unexpected was the humility and vulnerability Mollen shows in being a mother. She's always been a very relatable woman and to then write about the love she has for her son, and how scary that can feel, inspires a lot of confidence in myself to be a mother one day. I think a lot of people who read this book will share my sentiment here...

It's a strange feeling to both love and fear something in equal parts. I didn't know if I made him happy. He couldn't tell me. I didn't know if he wanted to kill me. He was strapped in a car seat. All I knew was that I love him violently- to the point of madness. But the intimate serenity of pregnancy, that weightlessness that can be replicated only by a muscle relaxant and a tall glass of wine, had vanished and in its place grew a thundering, inexorable terror."

For those of you who don't like to read but still like Jenny Mollen, this same vulnerability can be seen in the episode of Chelsea Does (Chelsea Handler's Netflix docu-series) on drugs. Mollen actually ends the book talking about her role in this show, as they all traveled to Peru to do a drug called ayahuasca. This drug is a crazy hallucinogen that is believed by locals to cure people of a ton of different mental illnesses. I'm not going to try and be knowledgable about it here but Mollen's experience really made her realize how much she loved being a mom. She cries obscenely in the episode about how much she loves her son. Handler, ironically, didn't feel the effects of ayahuasca at all on her own show.

a still from Chelsea does of Mollen, Handler, and a third friend with the ayahuasca facilitator

The book isn't all mommy-sappy though and she does poke fun at herself as a mother, as well as at her own newborn baby...

Would this little creature love me? Would he approve of me? Would his friends ever consider me hot? Would he ever find a picture of me from middle school with super-thin eyebrows? Or a Facebook post where I vowed to go vegan?... I waited for a minute, but before I could get super-cocky about not even flinching, I heard a baby cry. My narcotized eyes looked up and saw [the doctor's] hands holding a bloodied version of Caesar, from Little Caesar's Pizza."

I did really enjoy this book and it was exactly what I expected it to be. I think any female would really like this and I especially think any woman who's pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant and is nervous about losing their lifestyle would particularly love this. I also think it would make a great gift for a friend or family member who's expecting. It's an incredibly easy read.

To my pure horror, there is a movie adaptation being made and ANNE HATHAWAY is playing Mollen in it. I'm not sure how Mollen let this happen but either way, read the book before the movie comes out or risk it being ruined forever.

Sidenote: there's a television show I JUST learned about based on Mollen's first book if you want to follow this cute af family on TV. I sure do and will be watching ASAP.