Mindy Kaling basically fell from the sky to me. I never really got into The Office (hold your stones, people.) I’ve never doubted that it is a funny, quick-witted show, but it is too awkward for me. I really get into the emotions of characters and The Office is just one (hysterically) uncomfortable emotion after another. When I watch television, which was rare until recently, it’s for the warm-fuzzy, brainless entertainment usually. I spend all day thinking and worrying, if I came home to 24 my blood pressure would go through the roof.
This is why Mindy Kaling was practically unknown to me when Amazon recommended I read her book after Tina Fey’s Bossypants and Sarah Colonna’s Life As I Blow It. Kaling’s book is titled Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? which immediately appealed to me. (Much like Sloane Crosby’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake, another excellent book!)
In her book Mindy walks the reader through some family stories, some awkward growing up stories and some astute observations about shoe tying and dating. She also introduces the Irish Exit, which may be my new favorite thing because I’ve never known what to do with farewells until now.
I just love when I read a book and feel like we could be BFFs and that I wouldn’t be part of the entourage. She walks the line of nerd and glamor, something I can get on board with. I’ve picked out some of my favorite quotes but these are just the velvet rope of the club:
- “There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.”
- “Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched.”
- “This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It’s mostly pink. If you’re reading this book every night for months, something is not right.”
- “Writing, at its heart, is a solitary pursuit, designed to make people depressoids, drug addicts, misanthropes, and antisocial weirdos.”
- “I guess I find “Jack and Diane” a little disgusting…I wish there was a song called “Nguyen and Ari,” a little ditty about a hardworking Vietnamese girl who helps her parents with the franchised Holiday Inn they run and does homework in the lobby, and Ari, a hardworking Jewish boy who does volunteer work at his grandmother’s old-age home, and they meet after school at the Princeton Review. They help each other study for the SATs and different AP courses, and then after months of studying, and mountains of flashcards, they kiss chastely upon hearing the news that they both got into their top college choices.”
Omg I LOVED THIS BOOK. I read it twice. Let’s have a book club meeting on it!