Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and Other Concerns

I think Mindy Kaling is cool, and I want to be her best friend. This is the main thing I learned from reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). I feel it may have been her intention for writing this book: She wanted to make lots of strangers like her. Well, for me, it worked. I like Mindy Kaling even though I thought her book was like takeout Chinese: It’s delicious in the moment, but you find yourself hungry an hour later.

Kaling’s debut memoir (?) is a collection of essays, stories, and, what she calls, pliests, which are “pieces” with a “list-y quality.” I absolutely fell in love with Mindy while reading, or, at least, I fell in love with the voice on the page, which I’m assuming is exactly like show more the real Mindy. (Look at me, I feel like I know her enough to refer to her by her first name.)

I’ve never encountered a voice in a memoir that I felt so directly reflects the personality of the actual person writing it. Even when writing their memoirs, writers seem to transform into something I can only describe as “other” to relive and relay their experiences; the voice just doesn’t seem like it could be the person at all. But reading Mindy Kaling’s book makes the reader really feel like they’re getting to know Mindy Kaling.

I laughed out loud at some parts. Like when she was a nanny in New York and ate through the family’s supply of junk food after she put the kids to bed. The one little girl took the blame when her mother asked her who’d eaten all the pizza bagels, and when she told Mindy this her reply was, “You can never tell [your mother] the truth.”

Even though the book was funny, I failed to see the point of it.

Memoirs, personal essays are meant to extend beyond the person writing them, to not only mention the culture at large but to make some claim about it that provokes readers to see it in a new light. Many of Kaling’s observations are, well, obvious, which made me think that this is something I could have written myself. “Why do people care about what Mindy Kaling thinks? I have these thoughts, too.” Oh, wait, that’s right. Mindy Kaling’s famous; I am not.

The book has a stream-of-consciousness structure that Kaling says is meant to reflect the way she thinks. It’s conversational, as though she’s relaying the story of her life to someone as chronologically as she can but stops to throw in stray thoughts she wants to touch on or bits she might have missed. It’s sort of like how Dickens interrupts the flow of a story to describe a chair for three pages, only when Kaling does it it’s funny as opposed to distracting.

I felt certain pieces were oddly placed, like a piece called “Karaoke Etiquette” that was squeezed into a section about Kaling’s early struggles in New York, but mostly I had no qualms with this.

There were a few pieces Kaling clearly thought were funny but weren’t, which made them painful to read, like her pliest for movies that someone is probably pitching in Hollywood. But her pliest on “Revenge Fantasies while Jogging” more than makes up for it.

I found the book entertaining the way I find a sitcom entertaining: It was great to read but my time could have been better spent doing other things. Still, I enjoyed the enduring theme throughout the book of how Mindy Kaling learned to be funny, and why humor has always been important to her. show less

This book is Mindy Kaling's memoir of her journey from a chubby, awkward kid who adored SNL and Monty Python to a famous TV writer and actress (and, later, showrunner, although this book came out before "The Mindy Project" got going). She writes about being a relatively unpopular child whose friends' interests didn't quite align with her own, about moving to New York City and finding unexpected success with her Off-Broadway play "Matt & Ben," about meeting Greg Daniels and landing her role as Kelly Kapoor on "The Office," about her hatred of comedy roasts and her self-described uselessness as a writer (for a brief period) on SNL, and about her funny and frustrating experiences in Hollywood. There's a little bit about romance, but mostly show more in the abstract; this book is not a tell-all, by any means. And while Kaling does address her identity as an Indian American, as well as her totally-normal-but-big-for-Hollywood size, these aren't the focus of her book, and nor should they be. Instead, this memoir offers a fun, lighthearted look at Kaling's life and career in television.

This book is exactly what you'd expect it to be if you're familiar with Mindy Kaling's persona and style of comedy. It's as if your good friend, the one whose crazy escapades you like to live vicariously though, is chatting to you after a late night of drinking wine and watching romantic comedies. It's very light and very funny, and I enjoyed it immensely; it would make excellent plane reading. One of my favorite sections was the chapter on "Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Real," which debunks the myth of the beautiful klutz. (Because seriously, "klutzy" seems to be the go-to flaw for writers who still want their heroines to be cool and witty and gorgeous and without actual flaws. Do any of us really know smart, hot women who fall down the stairs on a regular basis?) I also loved the list of possible Hollywood movies coming to theaters soon, including "Crest Whitestrips," "Untitled Jennifer Lopez Sonia Sotomayor Project," "Street Smart," and "Street Stupid" ("Street Smart" sequel). Some of them do sound frighteningly plausible! So, bottom line: this is a funny, enjoyable book by a woman who is both successful and relatable. If you like Mindy Kaling, you should definitely check it out! show less

I read most of this on various plane rides which was inconvenient because my moments of bursting out with laughter were at the very least, annoying and maybe even disturbing to my fellow passengers. Mindy Kaling is funny, smart, clever, self deprecating in a way that I don't find it annoying. And frankly, I want to hang out with her! A super quick read, which made me sad as I wanted to read more of her stories.

I heard Mindy Kaling on WTF Podcast, where the host eventually wore her down with backhanded compliments about being "busy" or "punctual" or "ambitious" without ever calling her funny, and eventually she snapped back something like: "You know what? Just because I have discipline doesn't mean I'm not funny. Just because I'm not fucked up or dead or drug addicted like some other people doesn't mean the font flows less freely for people like me." If Mindy Kaling has to work super hard at what she does, I wouldn't know: this reads so well, so effortlessly! It's funny and engaging and relatable from start to finish. The title is misleading; Mindy Kaling is self-depricating to great effect but never wallows in it. I loved this! So much better show more than Michael Showalter's extremely uncomfortable and self-conscious meta-bio. show less

I enjoyed it just as much as I thought I would... which is to say, not very much. But I wanted to.

Kaling is funny. And I loved her thoughts on one-night-stands and marriage. The chapters on childhood were charming as well. But there is something about self-deprecating humor (especially when they are about weight and contain language) that rubs me the wrong way.* Sure, it isn't the thing to write a book about how amazing you are, but it didn't need to be that negative in its humor.

I think Kaling is amazing, has talent, and there's a genuine enjoyment of laughter that shines through her writing. She wasn't afraid to do the right kind of name-dropping-- the friends, the supporters, etc. And that is rare and commendable.


*The more I look show more back on The Office the more I'm realizing that I liked Jim and Pam and everything else about the show I loathed. Probably because it told the truth (that offices are often soulless places) and because it didn't tell the truth(that most people are actually nice). show less

Good grief. Have you ever just wanted to read a funny book and laugh? Maybe just be fully entertained for whatever amount of time your nose is in said book? Well I have, so I started reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling.

Like everyone else, I heard good things about Mindy Kaling’s book. I was convinced that it would be worth my time, at the very least. I’m actually not a huge fan of hers in general. The Office is okay, but I always thought Kelly was seriously annoying. I do watch The Mindy Project, but I don’t go out of my way to remember whether or not it’s on.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) was very well written. The stories were engaging and there were enough show more places that you could put the book down and pick it back up later, if you needed to. I personally didn’t want to put it down. Turns out, Mindy Kaling is hilarious. I think it was her frank storytelling and her absolute assurance of who she is and wants to be. Even the parts of herself that some may say are shallow, she totally owns it.

I have a whole new level of respect for Mindy Kaling after reading her book. I promise this is not a spoiler, but I’m going to vaguely reference something. My favorite part of the book was towards the end and was actually written by Michael Schur (creator of Parks and Recreation). I won’t ruin for all of you potential readers out there, but suffice it to say I was laughing so hard that I was snorting and “bothering” my fellow metro commuters on my way to work.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I was a big fan of this book. So, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy asap. I would highly recommend Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns).

Random extra thought: The back cover makes me chuckle every single time I look at it (both the picture and its caption).

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I loved this book. It was funny and light and refreshing. Side effects of reading this book: started following Mindy Kaling on Twitter; taking her advice that tweets should take less than 45 seconds to compose, or you are doing it wrong; relaxing about losing 10 pounds (sort of); considering joining a community theater stage crew (turns out community theater in SF is actually for professionals only; bummed); checking out her defunct blog, and following the shopping cues even though they are 2 years old; becoming more open to the idea that shopping might not be torture; considering buying more clothes that are not t-shirts, per her thoughts on dressing during one's early thirties. In short, this book became my best friend for the four show more days that I spent reading it. Love! show less