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

Published: November 2011

Publisher: Crown Archetype

Pages: 222

Blurb:

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.

Review:

I wasn’t a fan of Mindy Kaling before I read this book, but I was when I finished it. This is not the intellectual autobiography of the year, but it was fantastic. If you’re looking for a quick ( it took me about four hours to read),funny read , I would definitely recommend this. Kaling has an easy, yet interesting and extremely witty writing style, and the book is full of lists which I absolutely loved. Throughout the book Kaling discusses her struggle with her weight in a way a lot of people can identify with, and she deals with it in a sincere yet humourous way. It was really interesting to watch Mindy's career develop, and here about the ins and outs of the industry. The book has been compared to Tina Fey’s Bossy Pants , and I suppose it is similar as they are both a series of personal essays written by two extremely witty women. This book made me want to be best friends with Mindy Kaling, she seems like an absolute riot, and I wish I had read this book when I was a bit younger. The book is a bit short, by the time it was finished I was hoping for more.

This book might not be high literature, but it succeeded one hundred percent in it’s aim, so I’m going to give it five stars.

Side note: This book was unbelievably hard to get a hold of in Ireland,(a friend brought my copy back from America), so if you're looking for it you might just be better off ordering it online.