Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

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

Author: Mindy Kaling

Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Pages: 222

Format: Paperback

Published: September, 2012

Price: Rp203.000 (Periplus)

Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Date started: July 14, 2016 - Date finished: July 18, 2016

Synopsis:

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'm really glad that I've finally had the chance to finish this book. I've started this book so many times on my Kindle and always stopped halfway through and not finishing it. Recently, I bought the physical copy of this book because I started catching up on one of my favorite shows ever, The Mindy Project and find myself wanting more of Mindy so I decided to pick up this book and decided that now is the time to finish this book. I've always fancied Mindy as a comedian from her days in The Office to now her own show The Mindy Project. For me, Mindy is one of my favorite comedians alongside Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Ellie Kemper and Anna Kendrick (if you consider Anna a comedian).

Since this is Mindy's first memoir, as with any memoir, the first few parts of the book is about Mindy's childhood life. How she was always a die-hard comedy fan watching Comedy Central and was already writing sketches from an early age, which was kind of fascinating to read about. When she was little she shared this love of comedy with her childhood friend, Mavis, who also shares the same love of comedy like Mindy. After the childhood part, readers are taken to Mindy's college life, where she said that she ruled Dartmouth with two of her best friends.

After graduating college she moved to New York to pursue a career in television. In New York she realized that it was hard finding a job as a comedy writer, to make ends meet she did odd jobs here and there and the one job she really liked was being a babysitter to an upperclass Manhattan family. Her television gig started off as an intern for Conan, after that we all know her next big break, which as the Office as a writer and also co-starring in that sitcom. Beside Mindy's life experience she also shared her two cents about a certain issues. Of course in Mindy Kaling's way. For fans of Mindy Kaling this book is really worth the read.

You should know I disagree with a lot of traditional advice. For instance, they say the best revenge is living well. I say it’s acid in the face—who will love them now?

To be honest I'm kind of disappointed by this book. I, of course had expectations of this book because watching The Mindy Project is like a light at the end of the tunnel. It keeps me sane and gave me laughs when I needed them. So I expected this book to be LOL kind of funny but it didn't. I still liked it, there were some funny bits here and there that I got a chuckle out of but none were truly LOL funny, which is kind of a let-down. Needless to say I enjoyed it but it didn't live up to the expectations in my head.

“I don’t think it should be socially acceptable for people to say they are “bad with names.” No one is bad with names. That is not a real thing. Not knowing people’s names isn’t a neurological condition; it’s a choice. You choose not to make learning people’s names a priority. It’s like saying, “Hey, a disclaimer about me: I’m rude.” 

We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don't have to make it official. It just is.

The thing that I liked about this book is the writing. The writing is very conversational, very chill. It's like having Mindy as a friend talk to you sharing opinions about various subjects and getting to know her a little more. The thing that I didn't like, as I've said it before was the fact that it wasn't as funny as I expected it to be.

My favorite part of this book would be Mindy's life in New York and also the starting part of her career parts. I don't know much about The Office because I'm not really a fan of that show, I just watched a few episodes of that series and that was it as far as my Office experience goes but I do like reading about Mindy's life as a writer for that show and also a cast member.

Recommended read for a fan of Mindy Kaling!

That's all for now!