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

by Mindy Kaling

Paperback, 2012

Publication

Three Rivers Press (2012), 222 pages

Description

Essays. Family & Relationships. Nonfiction. Humor (Nonfiction.) HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •  In this hilarious instant classic, the creator of The Mindy Project and Never Have I Ever invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood. “[Kaling is] like Tina Fey’s cool little sister. Or perhaps . . . the next Nora Ephron.”—The New York Times   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!   With several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? proves that 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.   Praise for Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? “Where have you been all our lives, Mindy?”—Glamour “Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Mindy Kaling? . . . [Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?] is like a mash note to comedy nerds.”—Time Out New York “Very funny.”—Boston Globe.… (more)

Original language

English

Original publication date

2011

Media reviews

Mindy Kaling is kind of a dork. And I like her all the more for it. She and her new book, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns),” are an absolute delight.
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Kaling is a very smart woman who has worked her way from the low-rent apartment days in New York to owning a home in L.A. and breaking in to Hollywood's brutal inner circle. This is a fun, light read that will make you laugh a few times.
Kaling’s prose is at its brightest and most memorable when she recounts her experiences in the entertainment world. Her confirmation that former “Office” star Steve Carell is an indisputably nice guy manages to simultaneously express admiration and exasperation. After a failed attempt to
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engage Carell in a healthy round of on-set snarking, Kaling writes, “Later I would privately theorize that he never involved himself in gossip because — and I am 99 percent sure of this — he is secretly Perez Hilton.”
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Her tale shares some of the relatable, comically mundane qualities of The Office, but without the cubicle-gray bleakness of the mockumentary. Instead, the story is pink, fresh, lively, and distinctly female—but it isn’t driven by sexual politics.
The anecdotes go down easy, but have little resonance beyond the chuckles and knowing smiles they induce. The book’s strongest sections are those where Kaling dives a little deeper, as in the titular chapter, where she traces the familiar adolescent experience of leaving the safety of a clique
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she had less and less in common with for a new friend who shared and nurtured her growing love of comedy. Her struggles as a big fish in the small pond of Dartmouth College emerging into a vast, scary ocean of failure upon moving to New York, or her self-effacing recollection of her less-than-memorable stint guest-writing on Saturday Night Live are similarly endearing, and more emotionally resonant than bloggish asides like “In Defense Of Chest Hair” and “Why Do Men Take So Long To Put On Their Shoes?”
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And maybe that's another part of Kaling's charm: She gives off the vibe of the too-smart kid who's left her physically awkward days behind, but hasn't lost the outsider's conviction that popularity is wasted on the popular.

Physical description

222 p.; 5.2 inches

ISBN

0307886271 / 9780307886279

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