I was in Kramerbooks late last week and was looking for some light reading. I was perusing over by the cash register, where they tend to have some of their more humorous books, and my gaze fell on Mindy Kaling's new-ish book, "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns)". Now, I love The Office, so I was intrigued by this book by one of its actors (who also happens to be one of its writers and producers, which I was unaware of before). Also, after having read Bossypants last summer, I am all about comediennes' books- chicks can be funny too!!! The ultimate test is whether or not I laugh out loud while reading a random passage in the store, and this one passed the test.
I was somewhat disappointed by how the book started out, because it was not nearly as funny as I had thought it would be from that random burst of laughter in the bookstore. However, it got a LOT funnier, in my opinion, as the book went on. I think that one of the funniest parts of the book is actually the photo and accompanying caption on the back cover. While little Mindy is adorable, she has nearly the same tragic bowl cut that I had as a child (being that my scalp was so sensitive that my mother felt that it would be a waste of her time and money to subject me to the torture of a trip to the beauty parlor, she cut my hair herself, and, not being a hairstylist by trade, the bowl cut/mullet was about all she knew how to do. I don't blame her, but I cringe when I look at my childhood pictures. It was as though I was in a childhood-long awkward phase, but I had the one-up on Mindy in that I did not also have the grandma-like bug-eyed glasses.). In this picture, she is wearing some tragic 80s catastrophe of an outfit, and also the cutest little grin on her face. In case you can't read the caption, it says, "The author as a child star of the TLC series
Androgynous Kids and Puppets, the less successful predecessor of
Toddlers and Tiaras." I can't stop laughing whenever I look at the picture and read that incredibly self-deprecating caption. Another funny picture shows Mindy in an awful patterned sweater that left no doubt as to what decade she grew up in. The caption for that photo: "Cosby sweater on, loving life." It is something that I think all children of the '80s/early '90s can relate to.
Anyway, moving on from the decade-mockery (which I always appreciate), the book was hilarious. Mindy tells us all about her trials and tribulations as a struggling actor/writer/sometimes nanny, gives us the dirt on her Office castmates (she confesses that Steve Carell is so uninvolved in office gossip that she suspects that he may be Perez Hilton), lists the qualities that she feels makes an amazing man, struggles with the definition of "hooking up," tries to block her friends from having one-night stands by pointing out all the potential scenarios in which they could be killed...and the list goes on. The first of my favorite parts came when Mindy listed off what she predicts moviegoers will see in theaters soon (after emphasizing her surprise at how often movie execs predict what types of films audiences want to see). Some of her funnier examples (pages 148-149 if you happen to have the book in front of you):
- Apples to Apples 4D (audiences are pummeled with apples at the end of the movie)
- Crest Whitestrips (she points out that “I have an almost completed outline for Crest Whitestrips")
- Streptococcus vs. Candidiasis (Strep Throat vs. Yeast Infection)
- Street Smart
- Street Stupid (Street Smart sequel)
- The Untitled Liam Neeson “You Took My Female Relative” Project
- The Untitled Jennifer Lopez Sonia Sotomayor Project
- Darling (Peter Pan from the point of view of the Darling family’s alcoholic dad)
- The Bear from Those Toilet Paper Ads Movie 3D
- I Ain’t Yo’ Wife!
- You Ain’t My Dad!
Could.not.stop.laughing. Also, I would not be opposed to a movie starring the Charmin bear- that thing is freaking adorable!
My other part of the book is at the very end, when she answers a few questions that readers may have had unanswered during earlier parts of the book. One of them left me in stitches (again, if you have the book in front of you right now, p. 218):
"So, you never won any childhood spelling bees? I was under the impression this was a memoir of a spelling bee champ.
It is confusing, I know. Based on my ethnicity, the number of friends I had as a kid, my build, my eyesight, and my desire to please my parents, I should have been the reigning spelling bee champion from ages seven to fourteen. My best guess at an explanation is that my parents were worried that I would be just too good a speller and a potential kidnap prospect for anyone watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on CSPAN-3 in the middle of the afternoon."
Need I say more? Go buy the book, or better yet, borrow it from the library (joining the library has been on my list of things to do for a solid 8 months. Maybe one of these days I will be in the general area of the library on a Saturday and will be compelled to join up). I think my next funny-woman book shall be one of Chelsea Handler's...
