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

About The Book:

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 Thoughts:

Rather than being written like a story from point A to point B, it has some scenes from her life growing up but also shorter chapters that are more rants or raves on certain topics.  I love this.  I found myself thinking about her stories as if a friend told them to me.  I would remember them and tell my mom, I was reading a friends blog the other day and she said the funniest thing….  then remembered it was from her book.  Mindy is down to earth and likeable.

I think people who like the office and Mindy Kaling’s Comedy will get exactly what they expect from this book.  Not your humor then don’t bother reading it.

“So I’m into men now, even though they can be frightening. I want a schedule-keeping, waking-up-early, wallet-carrying, non-Velcro-shoe-wearing man.” 

The most true to life quote where I knew we could be best friends, from the chapter Best Friend Rights and Responsibilities:  “If our phone conversation gets disconected, there is no need to call back.  We take forever getting off the phone anyway.  This was a blessing”.

Funny read, I just wish we could all agree that the F word is not funny.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.  I would get it from the library and recommend with a warning about the language.