Hilary Winston

Winston's book is a tell-all-- and I do mean a tell-all, but the sub-title of the book (". . . and Other Stories I Shouldn't Share with Acquaintances, Co-Workers, Taxi Drivers, Assistants, Job Interviewers, Bikini Waxers, and Ex/Current/Future Boyfriends but Have") should definitely tip you off to that fact. If abundant sharing is not your thing, this is not your book. If, like me, it doesn't bother you, then dig in. One of the selling points of this book could be, in fact, a sense that you show more can identify with what she's talking about because she doesn't hold anything back or get hung up on the niceties. This is life as life is lived, uncensored, and you feel all the closer to Winston because this is how she's chosen to present it. It also makes her a more vunerable narrator, not a screeching harridan hell-bent on revenge for the titular boyfriend who wrote a book about his "fat-assed" ex-girlfriend: her.

The book is divided into six parts. Of those six parts, the first four basically center on the theme of relationships, including the one of the title. The last two kind of veer off into other territories; I knocked the book's overall star rating down a bit because these last two parts, while still containing quality material, seemed more scattershot and less tied into a central theme. It's like she wrote the first four parts, then needed to take up some more space in her book, so filled the last two parts with all the other essays she wanted to write but couldn't topically tie into the the first four parts. So the last segment of the book seems a little disjointed, which is a bit jarring. As I said, the material itself isn't the problem; it's the problem of fitting into an overarching theme for the book that seems to be an issue here.

Winston's writing, while funny, is not what you'd call (literally) laugh-out-loud hilarious. There were plenty of times I was smiling, but only during one essay-- "Single People Are Not Welcome at Build-A-Bear"-- did I find myself actually laughing out loud and reading bits of it to someone else. It's kind of hard to quantify a level of "funniness" when writing a review of a book. For me, a truly hilarous book has me chortling and disturbing other by constantly interrupting their reading with my readings from my book. A book that's amusing, but not in a way that will have me remembering particular lines from it later, will have me smiling quietly to myself. A lot of the humor derived, as I mentioned before, from the "been there, done that" sense that Winston conveys. Some of the essays, particularly in those final two parts of the book, tended a bit toward the melancholy, disrupting the casual rapport she'd previously established with the reader. It's just plain going to be hard for anyone to make cancer and dying cats amusing to me.

One thing I really admired about Winston was that she had here an opportunity to write a book that would be a vindictive attack on her ex-boyfriend who, as the title states, wrote a rather nasty book (fictionalized) about her. Rather than doing that, she remembers their relationship for the good and the bad, recognizing faults in both parties. She's really very fair in her assessment of the whole thing. There were plenty of openings for her to be mean and to caricture him, make cheap jokes at his expense, but she doesn't sink to do that. She's all the more likeable because of that; there's no mean spirit here.

So, overall: A solid entry. Funny, but not overwhelmingly hilarious. Solid most of the way through as to a theme, then veers off course a little toward the end. For the "not overwhelmingly hilarious" and the meandering, I'm knocking off a half-star. I would read Winston again, though. I like her too much to dump her-- unlike her ex-boyfriend. show less

Hilary Winston was upset (among many other reasons) that her boyfriend's book was billed as fiction despite the fact that it was true, and truly about her. So she wrote this non-fiction book, which is excruciatingly true about her.

I see she's sold it to Paramount, which is great for her - and a movie will give it some distance the book doesn't have. I say all this because it was very hard for me to read this book, and it's harder still to review - because of its excruciating truthfulness. I show more felt like a fly on the wall in her therapist's office, or like I'd broken into her diary. I admired her way with words, her ability to put the reader right smack dab in the middle of a scene (sex scenes, often), while at the same time feeling so, so sad for her.

All the sex, all the hook-ups, all the searching for the next man to replace the last man, obscure the real feeling, perceptive person that she is, that comes through in my favorite chapter (the one that one reviewer thought was filler), the one about her mother with cancer and her dying cat. If, after the movie, she chooses to write another book, I can't wait to read it. show less

By far the most interesting part of the book is her asshole ex-boyfriend, who is apparently Chad Kultgen, author of The Average American Male. Just reading the synopsis of his book makes me hate that guy. I imagine him to be Tucker Max masquerading as fiction. ANYWAY, Hilary Winston is a really good writer and her essays were both funny and sad, though I kind of wanted to shake her and tell her to get her life together and stop dating sincerely terrible men. I'd be interested in learning show more what her life is like now, eight years after writing. show less

Hilary Winston, writer for the TV hit "Community" and the defunct (but hysterical) "My Name is Earl" found herself in a bookstore one day, faced with the newly published book of the ex-boyfriend (Note: She refers to him as "Kyle", but it's misogynistic author Chad Kultgen) she'd loved and lived with for years. She opened it up to see that he'd taken their relationship, given them fake names, and slapped a fiction label on it. Not on that, but he'd referred to her as his "fat ass girlfriend," show more and gone on to pontificate on how much he disliked her. It turns out that this was the slap in the face that finally helped her put the last nail in the coffin of that relationship and move on. Part of the process of moving on was the writing of this book, in which she takes her ex-boyfriend to task and tells more funny (if sometimes disturbing) vignettes about her life.

How often does a book make you laugh, cry, cringe, and make you want to run out in the street and press it into the hands of every woman you see? Not often. You should read this book if: you've ever been betrayed by a man who you loved...you've had multiple boyfriends turn out to be gay...your longest relationship you've had with a man is with your tomcat...you enjoyed the movie "Bridemaids" and would like to read about a woman who would fit right into that wedding party.

I'll admit, part of the reason I adored this book so much was that I could identify with the author. I've had some pretty rotten relationships, and I've behaved in a similar fashion. But I think that most women would be able to find some part of Ms. Winston's experience which sounds familiar. All in all, it's a heartfelt journey of a women looking for love who starts to find love within herself. And it's shelved in non-fiction. show less