"I want a schedule-keeping, waking-up-early, wallet-carrying, non-Velcro-shoe-wearing man.”

I will just start out by saying that Mindy Kaling and I could be best friends if we were ever given the opportunity. I loved her on The Office and I adore The Mindy Project -- I haven't missed an episode. As I soon as I started flipping the electronic pages of her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? on my Nook, I didn't want to stop. I found myself nodding in agreement with pretty much everything she said. She is so funny and the way she writes is so real. I would say that I related to her so well, but that would make my life seem much cooler than it really is.

Some of my favorite quotes include:

"This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It's mostly pink. If you're reading this book every night for months, something is not right." 

This just gives the reader an idea of the mildly-snarky and completely hilarious comments to expect in this book.

"Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful..."

So, so true! This is what I will tell my students when they are feeling self-conscious or even when they are starting to get a big head about "being a star." Sure, maybe I remember who the popular kids were in high school but not one person cares about that stuff now. Not anyone who matters to me anyways.

"I’m only marginally qualified to be giving advice at all. My body mass index is certainly not ideal, I frequently use my debit card to buy things that cost less than three dollars because I never have cash on me, and my bedroom is so untidy it looks like vandals ransacked the Anthropologie Sale section. I’m kind of a mess.” 

Ummm, amen. Does anyone carry around cash anymore? Honestly, I'm scared that someone will steal my wallet so I don't ever have cash with me. Does that make me paranoid? Maybe. I have 26 dollars in my wallet right now because I returned something to CVS that I paid for with my debit card and they just gave me cash instead of putting it back on the card, but it has been quite a while since I've had that amount in my wallet. Also, my room is always a mess.

“It makes me cry because it means that fewer and fewer people are believing it's cool to want what I want, which is to be married and have kids and love each other in a monogamous, long-lasting relationship.” 

Thank you! It is so nice to know that there are people out there that still think marriage and having kids is important.


She also writes a chapter about a photo shoot she did for People magazine in which she arrived to find three dozen beautiful size zero dresses and one that would have been her size which was a navy blue dress that "looked like what Judi Dench might wear to the funeral she didn't care that much about." I love how honest she is about how she feels about her weight. She mentions several things about being a chubby child and being between "model skinny" and "super fat and fabulously owning her hugeness" as an adult. It was so refreshing to read about someone in Hollywood that is ok with being a normal-sized American woman. I believe all women (especially young women) need to hear things like this to let them know it's alright not to be teeny tiny and that you don't have to be a bean pole to be successful in life.

I am a crier. I don't know why, maybe I'm just an overly emotional person, but there are very few days that go by that something doesn't at least make me tear up a little bit. It can be a movie, a book, a song, or something as small as reminiscing on good (or not so good) times in my life. I've always been kind of embarrassed by it, but no longer because guess what? Mindy says she cries at least 5 times a week. This makes me feel a little more normal, or at least like there are other people in the world that are uber sensitive. 

For fans of Bossypants by Tina Fey definitely give this book a try. Some critic wrote that Mindy is Tina Fey's "cooler younger sister" and I'd have to agree. This book is excellent. I recommend it to anyone and plan to use examples from it when I have to give pep talks to my female students. Thank you Mindy for writing such a down-to-earth and real book. I hope one day we can meet and become best friends.