Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)by Mindy Kaling
This book is: Awesome.
Other elements:  Humor. Being a woman, being yourself. Life.Read it:  If you admire smart, sane women who have smart, sane things to say about life.
Overall rating: 9.5/10

I think generally it’s kind of dumb to read books by celebrities. They’re just going to tell me that they’re just naturally skinny, that everything is easy, and that they’re a real person just like me. At best, they’re mediocre biographies written by ghost writers who deserve better jobs. Right?

This is what I always assumed. That’s why I had no intention of reading Mindy Kaling’s book when I first heard about it. Especially because all I knew about her is that she’s associated with The Office in some way – which is a show I saw 15 mins of once and vaguely disliked.

Then I encountered an excerpt online, and it made me think.

Now, a collection of random quotes:

“What I’ve noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also a big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it’s just so wonderfully fair.” – Page 31

“We clung to each other with blind loyalty, like Lord Voldemort and his snake Nagini. I, of course, was Nagini. If you messed with one of us, you knew you messed with both of us, and Voldemort was going to cast a murder spell on you, or Nagini was going to chomp on your jugular.” – On best friends. Page 48.

“Your boyfriend is never going to tell you that your skirt is too tight and riding up too high on you. In fact, you shouldn’t even have asked him, poor guy. He wants to have sex with you no matter how pudgy you are.” – Page 81

“When a beautiful actress is in a movie, executives wrack their brains to find some kind of flaw in her that allows her to be palatable. She can’t be overweight or not perfect-looking, because who wants to see that? A not 100-percent-perfect-looking-in-every-way female? You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach for two hours.
So they make her a Klutz.
They 100-percent-perfect-looking-in-every-way female is perfect in every way, except that she constantly falls down. She bonks her head on things. She trips and falls and spills soup on her affable date. … Despite being five foot nine and weighing 110 pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society.” – On the types of women you see in movies. Page 100.

“For the record, I’m a size eight (this week, anyway). Many stylists hate that size, because I think, to them, it shows that I lack the discipline to be an ascetic or the confident sassy abandon to be a total fatty hedonist. They’re like: pick a lane!” – Page 192.

In conclusion: Mindy Kaling, if you ever see this review, can we please hang out?