Friday, November 09, 2012

Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? (and other concerns) by Mindy Kaling


Mindy Kaling. Egads. She be the funniest!

Like, the funniest in the world.

I am an intermittent viewer of The Office and I always found her character Kelly to be so sprightly and fun and so typical ( I love that, for those of us who work in office settings, the characters are almost archetypal).  Kaling also writes prolifically for the Office: including one of the funniest episodes it has ever aired (Remember that one with the Dundie awards? That was her).  This memoir acts as an introduction to her career as a comedian and writer and sitcom star; but takes us through her thought-processes with adorable little asides where you feel she is directly talking to you as you get your nails done with a latte and a zesty smile. Her observational humour had me in stitches.

Kaling grew up the daughter of parents who wanted their children to be high-achievers.  Always a braniac, Kaling had trouble identifying with kids her age. When she made it to high school, comedy became her first love and led to the writing and producing of a play that would act as her big break

Kaling champions and advocates intelligence in women. Her mother ( a major inspiration for Kaling and for her character in The Mindy Project) is an OB-GYN. Kaling would never settle for typical domestic role; nor was she brought up to. 

While Kaling is indeed funny, insightful and extremely brilliant; so is she the  type of girly-girl girlfriend you want for nights with merlot, fuzzy slippers and a Nora Ephron film.  Kaling works well in a “man’s world” writing comedy; but she is such a woman (in the flouncy and flowery way) when it comes to her hardcore belief in romance and happy endings.

She’s almost a dichotomy. She’s almost, it would seem, at odds with herself.

Those of you who have watched the Mindy Project ( and do…the stream of consciousness is to die for as is the wonderful success of an American minority in a starring, romantic role) should know that the Mindy you see there is very much the Mindy we meet in her book and that we can assume is the Mindy of “real life.”  Though fame and fortune and success have found her; she still is a down-to-earth woman: concerned about her weight, her singleness,  obsessed with Bridget Jones’ Diary and with a penchant for junk food and shopping with her friends.  I love her.  She’s so refreshingly normal.

Her insecurities will strike a note in that wonderfully relatable fashion so many females look for.  Her anecdotes on dating and school bullies will make you laugh aloud ( I read part of this book on a plane and was so conscious of my snickering).

Mindy Kaling, will you be my best friend?





1 comment:

Kailana said...

I have had this book since it came out and still haven't read it! I really must.