I’ve been a fan of Mindy Kaling since I started watching The Office at the beginning of the second season. I thought it was impressive that she was not only an actor on the show, but also a writer. Then I found out she had a shopping blog and, for the posts she wrote, used the pseudonym Mindy Ephron. Every time my RSS feed showed a new post on ‘Things I Bought That I Love’ I happily hurried to find what semi-luxury item (at least according to my budget at the time) I might want to buy. It’s because of Mindy Kaling that I bought a <a href="http://shop.theslanket.com/" target="_blank">Slanket</a>, months before the Snuggie took over the world. Based on this, it’s no surprise that when I found out she had a book coming out I preordered it for my Kindle and just waited for the release date.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (and Other Concerns) is part autobiography, part observational, part style/shopping guide. She starts off taking us through her childhood, college years, and post college years. The struggles of adolescent friendship, wanting to be popular and have a group of friends, but also a friend who you share interests with. I always enjoy hearing writers and actor’s stories of the struggling time between college and getting that first real entertainment job. People have ended up doing the oddest jobs. Mindy’s included babysitting for wealthy New Yorkers and being a Page for a network. (So not really that odd for her.)
She also talks about The Office, of course. I started watched The Office just after the second season started. I think it’s always been a good show, but, to me, the first 3 seasons are AMAZING. It was interesting to find out how she became a staff writer from creating and performing in “Matt and Ben”, and fictional play about the lives of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. (I’ve heard so many great things about that show. I really should try to track down a place to see a recording if one exists.) It was also fun to learn a little bit about the inner-workings of the show. I love this quote about putting the show together: “Our cheapness was the recurring source of our creative decisions.” In this section she also lists the differences and similarities of Kelly Kapoor and Mindy Kaling.
The rest of the book is more observational and covers topics like the once great romantic comedy and what went wrong with the genre, dating, the best friend code of conduct, men vs. boys, the random and fun pictures she keeps in her BlackBerry, and marriage. Based on what I read, I know Mindy and would be good friends. (I know I say that about quite a few people, this I know this one would be true!) While we (ok, I) anxiously await the first romcom written by Mindy to be created and theatrically released pick up a copy of this book and enjoy the life and observations of a talented and funny 32 year old who, like me, loves pop culture.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book that I related to:
“I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.”
“In psychology (okay, Twilight) they teach you about the notion of imprinting, and I think it applies here. I reverse-imprinted with athleticism. Ours is the great non-love story of my life.”
“The job I most wanted in the world was to be a writer on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. I can’t believe that was two Conan shows ago. It seems like yesterday.”
“It’s so simple. It’s not a witty, perfectly phrased, Ephron-y declaration by our charming, neurotic hero. It’s so … plain. But the idea is the most beautiful thing in the world.” - This is in reference to Mark Darcy, played by the ever charming Colin Firth, declaring to Bridget Jones that he likes her “just you are”. swoon
Grade: A
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Mindy Kaling's website
Mindy Kaling Twitter
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