Jen Lancaster Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

If You Were Here (2011)
Here I Go Again (2013)
Twisted Sisters (2014)
The Best of Enemies (2015)
By the Numbers (2016)
The Gatekeepers (2017)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

Bitter Is the New Black (2006)
Bright Lights, Big Ass (2007)
Such a Pretty Fat (2008)
Pretty in Plaid (2009)
My Fair Lazy (2010)
Jeneration X (2012)
The Tao of Martha (2013)
I Regret Nothing (2015)
Stories I’d Tell in Bars (2017)
Welcome to the United States of Anxiety (2020)

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Jen Lancaster Books Overview

If You Were Here

The fiction debut of the New York Times bestselling author of My Fair Lazy. Told in the uproariously entertaining voice readers have come to expect from Jen Lancaster, If You Were Here follows Amish zombie teen romance author Mia and her husband Mac and their pets through the alternately frustrating, exciting, terrifying but always funny process of buying and renovating their first home in the Chicago suburbs that John hughes’s movies made famous. Along their harrowing renovation journey, Mia and Mac get caught up in various wars with the homeowners’ association, meet some less than friendly neighbors, and are joined by a hilarious cast of supporting characters, including a celebutard ex landlady. As they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings with Mac taking on the renovations himself Mia and Mac will discover if their marriage is strong enough to survive months of DIY renovations.

Bitter Is the New Black

Jen Lancaster was living the sweet life until real life kicked her to the curb. She had the perfect man, the perfect job hell, she had the perfect life and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t last. Or maybe there was, but Jen Lancaster was too busy being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, and generally adored to notice. This is the smart mouthed, soul searching story of a woman trying to figure out what happens next when she’s gone from six figures to unemployment checks and she stops to reconsider some of the less than rosy attitudes and values she thought she’d never have to answer for when times were good. Filled with caustic wit and unusual insight, it’s a rollicking read as speedy and unpredictable as the trajectory of a burst balloon.

Bright Lights, Big Ass

Jen Lancaster hates to burst your happy little bubble, but life in the big city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies, most urbanites aren’t party hopping in slinky dresses and strappy stilettos. But lucky for us, Lancaster knows how to make the life of the lower crust mercilessly funny and infinitely entertaining. Whether she’s reporting rude neighbors to Homeland Security, harboring a crush on her grocery store clerk, or fighting and losing the Battle of the Stairmaster Lancaster explores how silly, strange, and not so fabulous real city living can be. And if anyone doesn’t like it, they can kiss her big, fat, pink, puffy down parka.

Such a Pretty Fat

A NOTE FROM JEN LANCASTER: ‘To whom the fat rolls I’m tired of books where a self loathing hero*ine is teased to the point where she starves herself skinny in hopes of a fabulous new life. And I hate the message that women can’t possibly be happy until we all fit into our skinny jeans. I don’t find these stories uplifting; they make me want to hug these women and take them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don’t matter. Unfortunately, being overweight isn’t simply a societal issue that can be fixed with a dose healthy of positive self esteem. It’s a health matter, and here on the eve of my fortieth year, I’ve learned I have to make changes so I don’t, you know, die. Because what good if finally being able to afford a pedicure if I lose a foot to adult onset diabetes?’

Pretty in Plaid

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.

My Fair Lazy

It’s a JENaissance! The New York Times bestselling author of Pretty in Plaid gets her culture on. Readers have followed Jen Lancaster through job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts, and 1980s nostalgia. Now Jen chronicles her efforts to achieve cultural enlightenment, with some hilarious missteps and genuine moments of inspiration along the way. And she does so by any means necessary: reading canonical literature, viewing classic films, attending the opera, researching artisan cheeses, and even enrolling in etiquette clas*ses to improve her social graces. In Jen’s corner is a crack team of experts, including Page Six socialites, gourmet chefs, an opera aficionado, and a master sommelier. She may discover that well regarded, high priced stinky cheese tastes exactly as bad as it smells, and that her love for Kraft American Singles is forever. But one thing’s for certain: Eliza Doolittle’s got nothing on Jen Lancaster and failure is an option.