This is a fun and lighthearted book about being creative and the struggles that can come with it. I really enjoyed all the illustrations and cartoons and laughed out loud a few times. I'm not necessarily a creative person in the sense this book means but I think it has a much wider scope of relatability and would make a great gift for anyone!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Honestly did not think the book was for folks who are not from creative art fields, but it is a great read for everyone!
Witty, funny and profound. Loved the cartoons, especially from the chapters related to types of procrastinators and the commuter train writer. Anyone who has struggled with motivation, low productivity or fear of failure will find this book relatable and inspirational!
If you are feeling overwhelmed at work or home, read this to take comfort in numbers - that countless others also.share your struggles. Read it for a dash of joy and humor that will brighten your day instantly.

Dana Jeri Maier knows what it’s like to make bad art. She knows what it’s like to make okay art. She knows what it’s like to procrastinate and internet surf and be a paper snob and doodle on the backs of envelopes. She knows all this because she is an artist.

As an artist who has created comics for The New Yorker and other publications as well as her own comics, Maier understands how to get through the dry times as an artist. She has faced her self-doubts and her struggles for inspiration. She knows what she needs to refill her own tank, and she knows when to troll her fake enemy for some resentment fueled creation (he’s not so much an enemy as someone who she feels makes inferior art but gets lots of internet love, so she considers him an enemy). In other words, she has figured out how to make the artist’s life work for her.

She may spend a lot of time making doodles of fish. She may argue with herself about whether she should make it a job and show up at the same time everyday or walk away for inspiration and wait for the ideas to come to her. She may not be moved by big museum pieces by “important” painters and their pretentions for telling how others should react to their work. But she knows what she likes, whether it’s a sculpture in the National Gallery of Art or a book written and illustrated by a 6-year-old.

Skip to the Fun Parts is a clever, honest, funny, moving look at the inner workings of an artist’s brain. Maier opens up some of her life and her work and shows us through short essays and cartoons what it means to her to be an artist and how a creative life works for her. It would be helpful to artists just starting out and trying to find some compassion for their attempts at art, like those in art school or considering it, or for anyone who wants to find more creativity in their life or on their vision boards.

This is a quick read, and a little cynical in places. Maier is hard on herself, but she is able to live a good life making and selling art. I hope that writing and publishing this book has helped her see how successful she really is. This is an accomplishment, and it’s totally okay to stay in bed with the cat in the morning, no matter how early other artists get up and get started. Cat time is worth it.

Egalleys for Skip to the Fun Parts were provided by Andrews McMeel Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and I am thankful for the "detour" from criticizing my creative efforts. It was both a mild distraction and also shedding a spotlight on my own struggles putting pen to paper...or paint to canvas...or...well, you get the point.

While many books on creativity offer advice and techniques, this one takes a more humorous approach, filled with cartoons and jokes that poke fun at the struggles of creating. Skip to the Fun Parts by Dana Jeri Maier was an enjoyable and entertaining read that provided me some much-needed comic relief during an emotional month.

This was a quick but good read. This was a bit different than most books I've read on creativity. As the blurb says, there was not a lot of creative advice, and it focused on jokes about the creative process. It almost seemed like Dana wanted the readers to embrace the struggle of the creative process. Some of the things mentioned were relatable, but for some reason, this book kept me wanting more. It felt like something was missing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not an artist person in any sense of the word. However, I sometimes, sort of, kinda want to be. This books is basically all of the reasons and thoughts I have about being an artist. It's hard. It's funny. It's full of bad ideas and terrible ideas and ideas that don't go anywhere. And yet. Yet it is amazing and wonderful and joyful when you do it.

The book is quite funny and there were some good jokes. The writing on the cartoons was sometimes hard to read

I was intrigued because I'm a beginner artist and wanted to see a deeper perspective of this world. This book was fun but a bit random... and the contrast between texts and illustrations are so different and I was struggling to get the point... But okay I guess it might just not be for me after all.

I absolutely loved this book. So clever and funny and something that anyone who has ever tried to be creative will love. I would recommend this to so many people in my life and am excited to see more from this author!

This is a fun book about creativity. Insightful and flippant essays and smart and wise cartoons make the book very pleasant. The book concerns such topics as procrastination and going through all of your old creative work, to art supplies you must have (or not), and meditations on all matters of the art (or not) of creation. I enjoyed this, from an author I have not previously known of. Left me feeling up and inspired to move to my next project. So, that's good!