Why Not Me?

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I listened to these as I read them, but I’m going to count this as more of an audiobook read because I definitely paid more attention to the audio than the written stories. One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about. We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don’t have to make it official. It just is.”

Spend hours following a difficult recipe, hate the way it tastes, and throw it out to go to McDonald’s

I’m the kind of person who would rather get my hopes up really high and watch them get dashed to pieces rather than wisely keep my expectations at bay and hope they are exceeded. This quality has made me a needy and theatrical friend, but has given me a spectacularly dramatic emotional life.”

From the author of the beloved New York Times bestselling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and the creator and star of The Mindy Project comes a collection of essays that are as hilarious and insightful as they are deeply personal. After reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, I fell fast and hard for Mindy Kaling. However, by Season 3 of The Mindy Project I was more like this . . . I liked the book good enough, she is really funny. I could give a million funny excerpts but I won't do that, but there is one where she is giving her daily routing driving to work and this one thought was particular funny and scary to me. lol

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I don't know how Mindy managed to touch on such deep and personal topics in just one short story, but of course she did it. This story was all about social anxiety and being introverted and lonely in a new city with no friends. It was so relatable and she was able to put all my thoughts into words. It felt like I was listening to my friend talk to me. I spent a great portion of my adolescence trying to look, sound and act less Indian. I straightened my hair, tried to keep my skin light by avoiding the sun and even trying skin bleaching products, and avoided anything that suggested ‘tradition’ or ‘culture’ like the plague. I felt like if I wanted to have the exciting lives sold to me by the white heroines on TV, I needed to look and act like them too. Even though Mavis was my secret friend, she is the only one I hope I see again. She’s the only one I wonder about. I hope she wonders about me too.” It's a shame, because the first two-thirds of Kaling's effort is an engaging memoir chronicling a thoroughly conventional upbringing and an unlikely rise to notoriety and television scripting fame. Her circuitous route to her career is both affable and a fun read—which makes it all the more disappointing that once she reaches the heights at NBC, the rest of the book sputters out when it has nowhere to go.

As a person who has seen every episode of the office more than once (okay, fine, more than 5 times) I already think Mindy Kaling, writer and actor who plays character Kelly Kapoor, is really funny. Devi is Indian-American. But Devi is also so much more than that – she’s obnoxious, precocious, principled, funny, insecure, sweet, and hopelessly out of control when it comes to her emotions. Devi is Indian but she is also a person, not a caricature of an Indian migrant, there to serve as cultural dressing on a white bread sandwich. I'm happy to report, therefore, that Why Not Me? is a much more focused and tightly-constructed memoir. Kaling's first book was a mishmash of funny essays and stories about her childhood and time spent working in Hollywood; Why Not Me? has a much clearly defined thesis: how Mindy Kaling achieved her success as a writer/actor/producer, what contributed to this and what didn't help, and how she grapples with that success. Why Not Me? is all that we’ve come to expect from the creator and star of The Mindy Project: refreshing, confident, genuine, and, yes, absolutely hilarious.” — Refinery29 Never Have I Ever follows Los Angeles teen Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is navigating all the usual trials and tribulations of being a teenager: dating, identity, popularity, and the demands of her family and cultural life.Update 9/22/15: This isn't going to be my best review ever. Since last night I've been fighting exhaustion, and I think I might have a sinus infection, but I wanted to get this review done within 24 hours of finishing because I know that I will forget what I want to say about it if I wait any longer than that. Big Shot - 4 Stars - Mindy shares a lesson she learned about generosity and expecting gratitude. She gives her readers endless curiosity over who “Max Davis” really is. She also shares a day in her life as a kind of bonus essay. After all these years with friends who are five ten or taller, I have come to carry myself with the confidence of a tall person. It’s all in the head. It works out.” For so long, I’ve been used to swallowing whatever crumbs I’m thrown when it comes to diverse characters in pop culture, even when their entire plotline revolves around their cultural difference (Lane Kim from Gilmore Girls), and when they’re clearly there to signify the intangible notion of “racial diversity” in an otherwise primarily white cast (Tina and Mike in Glee).