By Megan Donohue

Jen Lancaster is a combination of you at your sassiest and that best friend that we all have who doesn’t have a filter.

May 1, she kicked off her book tour for her sixth autobiographical book, Jeneration X, and seventh book at the Mad Art Gallery in St. Louis. Apart from her one novel, If You Were Here, her books either cover certain areas of her life, such as fashion choices throughout the years in Pretty in Plaid, or being broke and unemployed in Bitter is the New Black, or they cover her attempts to tackle a goal, such as losing weight in Such a Pretty Fat.

Photograph by Megan Donohue

The novel that was released yesterday is subtitled One Reluctant Adult’s Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It’s Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner. This time she tackles her reluctance to grow up and attempts to be more of an adult.

After she explained this to the crowd of over 100 women assembled, she laughed at the collective gasp. She had appeared on the Today show the day before, and one of the hosts told her that he liked her immaturity and didn’t want a new grown up Jen. “Don’t worry,” she said back. “It’s more about me trying and miserably failing to grow up. I’m still just as immature.”

She read an excerpt from her book that she says is one of the favorite things she’s ever written. It’s about visiting the Whole Foods near her home in Chicago and encountering a child named Margo with $300 dollar jeans (she looked it up – we all know she has that kind of time, she said laughing) and a penchant for sushi and “wasabi that’s like wasabi, only less wasabi like.”

In short, she encountered the type of person that makes her go on one of her insane rants that are so much fun to read.

She answered questions for the next hour, mostly about her life: her husband, her cats, her dog Maisy, the monkey wallpaper in her kitchen. Only one question was asked about her books, and it wasn’t even specific to a certain work. In the age of Internet, she isn’t just an author. Through regular blogs, tweets, facebook posts and YouTube videos, she has become each of her readers’ friend.

The best answer came to a question of what her latest Ambien-buy was. In one of her earlier books, she details one night when she took the pill to help her sleep, forgetting she had had several glasses of wine beforehand. The mix lead to a crazed night of Ebay searching and buying that she had no recollection of until a Barbie styling head arrived at her house a few days later.

She hasn’t bought anything recently, because she moved into a new house where the master bed is downstairs and her office is upstairs – a good thing since post-Ambien Jen is too lazy to climb the stairs to the computer. She did however demonstrate to her husband Fletch how quickly she can run sideways (a demonstration she re-enacted for us) and make a giant caramel apple sandwich.

The book signing started after, and even though she was signing books for a good two hours, she was gracious with each fan and never made anyone feel like they were wasting her time. As funny, snarky and genuine as she was in person, her newest book promises to be just as good as her last.