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

Author: Mindy Kaling

Series: Stand Alone

Genres: Autobiography, Memoir, Adult

Publisher: Crown Archetype

Released: 1 November 2011

Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com 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

My Review: Better known as Kelly Kapoor from The Office, Mindy Kaling is one of the most hilarious people, well, ever.  I thoroughly enjoyed her autobiography (memoir? What IS the difference, I don’t know…) Not only does she talk about her childhood as an Indian growing up with two incredibly smart parents, she also tells of her years spent at both a Massachusetts private school and Dartmouth.  The most surprising part of her book is that you realize what it means to take everything in stride.

Mindy has accomplished a lot in her life.  She’s an Ivy league grad, she wrote an Off-Broadway play that was hugely successful, and she was the youngest ever female writer to join The Office, at the age of 24.  Awesome?  YES.

Mindy Kaling is also really smart, seriously, nothing like her Office character.  She has also definitely worked hard to achieve that kind of success that she has.  And she’s come out the other end able to sound (narratively) like one of the nicest, smartest, and funniest girls in show business.  This is definitely a fun read if your a fan of Mindy, a fan of The Office, a fan of girl-power, all, none, some of the above.  Mindy is witty and charming, and this reads more like a novel than a autobiography.  Out of all of the celebrity "autobiographies" that I've read, this one has felt the most authentic, as well as the most funny.  There are so many passages that had me laughing so hard that I cried.

However, I do have to give this with a warning: it’s definitely an “adult” novel.  I normally stick to the Young Adult genre, but every once in a while I become enamored with a persona or and event and end up reading as much as I can to find out more about the subject. So, Mindy doesn’t really have that much of a filter.  It’s not as bad as Carrie Fisher’s hilarious and incredible irreverent Wishful Drinking, but still not one I would recommend for kids, either.