Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns

Title: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns
Author: Mindy Kaling
Date Read: August 19, 2013

Summary: Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka. goodreads

Review: This is the first book I read for the Bout of Books read-a-thon and unfortunately it was just meh as Tanya over at Mom's Small Victories put it. When I listed this book as one of my goals, Tanya commented on the post and I couldn't agree more. I think Mindy is funny but I wasn't laughing out loud at any parts. I think she is very relateable and someone that I would want to be friends with but I was looking for funnier stories. Or something. My favorite chapters were the "Best Friends and Responsibilities" and "Guys Need to Do Almost Nothing to Be Great." Once again, I think both of these chapters were very relateable and I agreed on a lot of her points. I think Mindy has great advice for the people who don't peak in high school (I thank God every day I didn't peak in high school) and is a good example of how far hard work and a sense of humor can get you. I'm not a huge The Office fan so maybe I missed some of the humor but I think memoirs like this tend to be disappointing in general for me. Everyone loved Bossypants while I was just "meh." I thought it was funny but I don't know what all of the hype is about. Overall, I love that women like Mindy and Tina make it cool to be the funny girl and if reading their books supports that, I'm all for it!