Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“There are many teenage vampire books you could have purchased instead. I’m grateful you made this choice.”  - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns) by Mindy Kaling

I'm not going to lie - I became a little bit obsessed with this book.

I borrowed it from the library early March and read through it over the course of a couple of nights. I held onto it for a week because I had so many specific points I wanted to remember about how Mindy and I were carbon copies of each other.

I read it again, spending a week's worth of evenings going through it and making notes to myself.  And then I carried it around in my backpack for another week. At one point, I spilled some water on it and thought, "Yes! Now I can legitimately just keep it since I have damaged this small lower corner of it irrevocably." But, in truth, the damage was minimal and I started to think about how the next person in the library’s Holds queue deserved to enjoy this book as much as I had.

So, I carried it around for one more week.

I dropped it into the library book return yesterday thinking it would release me of the burden of reviewing it and sharing with the world my small but strong obsession with Miss Mindy Kaling and her tome.

But alas, I have too much to say about it (plus I have to keep my Goodreads account updated) so I'm going to do my best to explain to you some of the great things about this book. I find this incredibly difficult because I enjoyed this book for very different reasons than most others I read. And reviewing something you love a little too much is impossible. I will never convey why I like it so much because those reasons are very personal. But I will try.

Disclaimer: I have been a fan of Miss Kaling’s for a while. I kind of loved her since she slapped Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) across the face in Diversity Day (2nd episode of season1). 

The Mindy Project is a must watch for me and I could create quite a list of reasons why you should be watching it (another blog post me thinks).

She's just like me (kind of)

Okay, I fully admit that as I read this book, I over-identified with Mindy on a slightly uncomfortable level. It didn't take too many pages for me to think 1) she writes in a familiar, witty voice I would love to emulate and 2) she writes about a bunch of important nonsense.

Now I didn't grow up in a multicultural home. I didn't go to Dartmouth, write a hit play, become a writer for one of the biggest television shows of the last 25 years or get my own television show where I get to kiss good-looking and slightly flawed men of my choosing on a regular basis. In these ways, we are not alike. I was, and continue to be, a shy person with no desire to be the center of anything. But she's had an unconventional but relatively normal life and I'd like to think that I along with most people have had the same. And those lives are funny and interesting. And they explain a lot about the people we have become.

But there are other things that I immediately latched onto as clear signs that the author and I are kindred spirits or long-lost celestial sisters.

1. She doesn’t listen to music when she writes. Me neither. Okay this one is weak but keep reading.
2. She cries when she hears Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide and doesn’t understand people who don’t. I used to lie on my apartment floor when I was 25 and listen to this song on repeat, singing and crying.  I’m still not exactly sure why. Again, there is a generation of girls who have logged tear-filled hours listening to this. I am not alone in this one.  But there’s more.
3. She has hairless forearms. Me too. It’s freaky.
4. She lost weight and got stretch marks in middle school. Right here. In my mind, there was never a time when I didn't have stretch marks. I got the bulk of them and noticed them in the 8th grade after spending that spring playing tennis and losing 10 pounds. What a rotten bit of luck, right?  I was borderline terrible at the game; I didn’t tryout for the high school team. Those 10 pounds found their way back home freshman year. And they brought more of their stretch mark friends.

Her writing style is feminine, funny and modern

Mindy talks and writes in a manner that is familiar to me and most women of our generation. It’s fluid, intelligent, and full of pop culture references.  Don’t confuse this with some attempt at airhead-chic prose aimed at getting young girls to pay attention to her.  She drives home fairly big points about life, growing up, finding yourself and tenacity without being heavy handed.  The message I gleaned from the whole thing:  Women can be cool, funny, obsessive, flaky, or disinterested in things. Flaws are relative. Being critical and honest about yourself is helpful if you look at it as a part of who you are and leverage it to make yourself more powerful in other ways.  

Plus, the lady has a ton of lists in this book that you can print out and live by. Or in my case, read out loud to your friends while you drink wine and watch reruns of the IT Crowd. 

Book Highlights for Me

• There is a whole chapter on Jewish guys.  Laugh out loud funny.
• The chapter where she talks about moving from dating boys to dating men will be required reading in my soon to be offered community college course, “So now, you’re 30: How to grow up and stop crying.”
• I will be handing my bestie a copy of the chapter “Best Friend Rights and Responsibilities” this weekend.
• Her story about being forced to jump off the diving board by an ‘adult’ is a great lesson to parents who have or think they have timid children. Hint: They may be smart or just not interested.

    “When I was a kid, my parents smartly raised us to keep quiet, be respectful to older people, and generally not question adults all that much. I think that's because they were assuming that 99 percent of the time, we'd be interacting with worthy, smart adults... They didn't ever tell me 'Sometimes you will meet idiots who are technically adults and authority figures. You don't have to do what they say.”

In Closing

Mindy uses some great vocabulary that I plan to steal and make my own. Stay tuned for some great, witty uses for the following words:  Pejorative, nebulous, prescient, anthropological, gesticulation and scepter (this last one is strange but trust me).

So that is my love letter to Mindy Kaling and her work, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Now, if you will excuse me. I’ve got to head to Powell’s and pick up my own copy before I make myself crazy.

Quotes of Note

“One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about.”

“That's the one nice thing about being a dork about men: you can sometimes play it off as restrained and classy.”

“So I’m into men now, even though they can be frightening. I want a schedule-keeping, waking-up-early, wallet-carrying, non-Velcro-shoe-wearing man.” 

“I do not think stress is a legitimate topic of conversation, in public anyway. No one ever wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am isn’t conversation. It’ll never lead anywhere. No one is going to say, “Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake.”