American Babe

American Babe: A White Girl Problems Book by Babe Walker
Published by Gallery Books on Jun. 28, 2016
Genre(s): Humor, Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Goodreads synopsis: 

Author of the New York Times bestseller White Girl Problems and Psychos, Babe Walker, faces her most daunting challenge yet—suburbia—in the third caustically witty White Girl Problems book.

Babe Walker thought she had done it all. After all, she’s survived the highly exclusive social hierarchies of Bel Air, traipsed around Europe in true white-girl fashion, and left her mark on several of the best rehab facilities in the United States. But now Babe is about to enter a terrifying new world: Middle America.

After a freak accident that was definitely not Babe’s fault, her estranged mother offers her the perfect escape from LA: an invite to her grandfather’s eightieth birthday party in Maryland, of all places. Babe’s journey throws her headlong into elementary school classrooms full of small, unfashionable people and pizza buffet restaurants that will haunt her nightmares and eventually back to Los Angeles, thank goodness. Tossed together with her cousins—basic preteen Cara and mature and preternaturally stylish Knox—Babe learns that connecting with someone on an intimate, familial level might be the most rewarding experience there is…

Besides being thin, of course.

Hysterical, unapologetic, and as unfiltered as ever, Babe Walker proves again to be the “urban socialite you love to hate” (Time), and she can only hope the population is ready for American Babe.

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Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Published by Little Brown in Aug. 14, 2012
Genre(s): Fiction, Humor, Contemporary, Mystery
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 330
Goodreads synopsis: 

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns)

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
Published by Three Rivers Press on Jan. 1, 2011
Genre(s): Nonfiction, Humor, Memoir, Biography, Essays
Format: Paperback
Pages: 222
Goodreads

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.

I became obsessed with Mindy after my friend got me quickly and easily hooked on her show, The Mindy Project. I had only seen her a couple of times when I watched The Office here and there, but I didn't know much about her. I now watch her show religiously and I've started watching The Office from Season 1 after finishing this book because that's how cool she made it (herself) sound. So far not impressed.... just kidding. Mindy is so real I can barely believe it.

I loved reading her story of growing up awkward and funny then killing it in NYC and Hollywood by just being herself. It's an excellent story of comedic perseverance in this harsh world that Mindy tells with her perfect airy tone of awesomeness. The only reason I am giving 4 stars is because I thought the book started off slow with the parts about her parents, and I wish she would have made the book much longer... Also, it was only laugh-out-loud funny at some parts, and I expected to have a side cramp from laughter by the end. Okay, maybe my expectations were too high for someone's first book...about their actual life...

Regardless of your thoughts (or lack thereof) on this book, do yourself a favor and check out The Mindy Project on Hulu or whatever. Mindy is basically an older, richer, more employed version of me. And it's seriously so funny.

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