Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Random House Audio (2015), Unabridged MP3; 4h57
Description
Essays. Family & Relationships. Nonfiction. Humor (Nonfiction.) HTML:#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � From the author of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and creator of The Mindy Project and Never Have I Ever comes a hilarious collection of essays about her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life. �This is Kaling at the height of her power.��USA Today In Why Not Me?, Kaling shares insightful, deeply personal stories about falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, and believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you�re constantly reminded that no one looks like you. In �How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet�s Confessions,� Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty, (�Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn�t the land of appropriate�this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman�s traditional hair color is honey blonde.�) �Player� tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. (�I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs.�) In �Unlikely Leading Lady,� she muses on America�s fixation with the weight of actresses, (�Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they�re walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture.�) And in �Soup Snakes,� Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend, B.J. Novak (�I will freely admit: my relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell.�) Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who�s ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who�ve never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member lyndsay
At a time in my life when I needed something light-hearted, interesting, funny, inspiring and overall, just enjoyable, I'm happy to say I loved this book. Each chapter made me smile and the end of the book left me wishing my nightstand had 100 similar books lined up to read next.
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
There were parts of this I loved and parts of this I hated averaging it out to be okay. I was a little bit disappointed b/c I loved the first one.
LibraryThing member Kiddboyblue
Mindy Kaling is the kind of celebrity that I want to be my best friend! In fact I constantly tell people, we ARE best friends!
She just has an easy, agreeable way of writing about her life that makes you feel like she's so relaxed and cool.
Just as in her first book, I found a lot of depth and
She is honest and frank about her vulnerabilities which I would imagine is hard for someone in the spotlight.
She is cute, quirky, honest and funny as hell.
I bought her book the day it came out and was not let down! It's worth the read!
She just has an easy, agreeable way of writing about her life that makes you feel like she's so relaxed and cool.
Just as in her first book, I found a lot of depth and
Show More
openness in her writing. She clearly has a tremendous comedy voice, but beyond being funny she has a lot depth and really opens herself up.She is honest and frank about her vulnerabilities which I would imagine is hard for someone in the spotlight.
She is cute, quirky, honest and funny as hell.
I bought her book the day it came out and was not let down! It's worth the read!
Show Less
LibraryThing member PrimosParadise
I think I'm in the minority when I say I liked the first book better. Here she seems to be more "I am so privileged but look how normal I am; I'm just like you!" (very US Magazine)Some parts were funny and interesting while others seemed to drag...The "Will segment" started promising and then kind
Show More
of petered out; sort of like the relationship itself. I love Mindy Kaling and her show; she has that look that while not traditionally beautiful just seems to charm and entrance. But I will say that I was a little put off (even somewhat offended) when she repeatedly indicated that the readers of her book were either female or gay; I'm neither but still have no problem reading what she has to say; not that there's anything wrong with that. She has her audience and you know who you are. Show Less
LibraryThing member klack128
I love Mindy Kaling. I sort of want to BE Mindy Kaling. she's smart, and funny, and confident, and successful.
What I loved the most about Why Not Me is Mindy's honesty. she doesn't try to pretend she is something she is not, or even what other people seem to think she is. I think she shines most
I particularly loved the section where she talks about her weight, and how she has become a person to point to when it comes to praising body acceptance, even though she doesn't necessarily accept her body the way it is. And even though she has probably the most average body type in america.
have I said I love Mindy Kaling? because I really, really do.
What I loved the most about Why Not Me is Mindy's honesty. she doesn't try to pretend she is something she is not, or even what other people seem to think she is. I think she shines most
Show More
at the moments later in the book where she addresses public perception of her (and more specifically, of her weight), and what breeds confidence (hard work). Her sense of humor is still there, but behind it is a very real person who has been through the fire, and is here, successful, on the other end.I particularly loved the section where she talks about her weight, and how she has become a person to point to when it comes to praising body acceptance, even though she doesn't necessarily accept her body the way it is. And even though she has probably the most average body type in america.
have I said I love Mindy Kaling? because I really, really do.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jwood652
Much as expected, a fun read! Mindy is a talented comedy writer and has lots of interesting and humorous stories to tell. Though she doesn't fit the current idea of female beauty, and talks quite a bit about it, it can be argued that she is gorgeous. This collection of essays, goes well beyond
Show More
beauty, which is only skin deep, and gives us many interesting tidbits and insights on a variety of subjects. Show Less
LibraryThing member jwood652
Much as expected, a fun read! Mindy is a talented comedy writer and has lots of interesting and humorous stories to tell. Though she doesn't fit the current idea of female beauty, and talks quite a bit about it, it can be argued that she is gorgeous. This collection of essays, goes well beyond
Show More
beauty, which is only skin deep, and gives us many interesting tidbits and insights on a variety of subjects. Show Less
LibraryThing member ethel55
After finishing Why Not Me?, I decided what Mindy relates in the beginning to be true. Now I feel like I know her, rather than just liking her. And while the majority of these essays are full of fun and humor, you can still see that unsure Mindy at times, the one we all know from the first book.
Show More
Being the parent of a millennial who identifies as Mindy's soul sister, I'm definitely okay with that. Mindy may not realize how much of a mentor she is to some of her fans, but her ability to just go ahead and live her life, trips to McDonald's included, makes her feel very accessible. And her awareness of how people view her in relation to her body, when in reality, that's not what she's all about. I loved her description of her show, being about "the struggles of a delusional Indian thirty something trying to scam on white dudes." I don't feel like I've done her book justice here, but it's truly a great read. Show Less
LibraryThing member ecataldi
Cute and easily readable, this second memoir from Mindy Kaling is just as good as her first. I know everyone says it, but she sounds as if she could be my best friend. By Hollywood standards she's "real," as in, she doesn't starve herself to fit in with idealized forms of beauty, which makes her
Show More
more accessible to the average woman. In this second selection of essays and stories she talks about her best friend BJ Novak, her childhood, trying to come to terms with her body, and trying to find prince charming. Each section is short and sweet and will have readers laughing out loud or shaking their heads in agreement. Witty and well worth a read, I can't wait for her next one :) Show Less
LibraryThing member kayceel
Funny, charming, and so delightful! Kaling writes with a breezy charm, and this, plus her previous book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? make me sure we would be great friends. or wish I could hang out with her somewhere in her incredibly busy schedule!
Essays include ways in which she is and is
Highly recommended!
Essays include ways in which she is and is
Show More
not like her The Mindy Project character, Mindy Lahiri; a hilarious speech given at the 2014 Harvard law graduation (that I read out loud to my daughter); an eye-opening and exhausting photographic look at a typical day in her work life (5am-11pm is a normal workday for her and holy CRAP, does she work hard); and a lovely essay about how one can regain one's confidence (another I read out loud to my daughter), including the awesome advice: "Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and feel entitled."Highly recommended!
Show Less
LibraryThing member bookworm12
Mindy is hilarious and I enjoy her books. They are particularly good on audio (which she narrates herself).
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
There were parts of this I loved and parts of this I hated averaging it out to be okay. I was a little bit disappointed b/c I loved the first one.
LibraryThing member tbritny
"What really knocks me out is a book that when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you feel like it. That doesn't happen much, though." - Holden Caulfield (pulled from the Soup Snakes essay)
I
If you're reading this, you're probably a woman. Or perhaps you're a gay man getting a present for your even gayer friend. Maybe you accidentally bought this thinking it was the Malala book. However this book made its way from the "Female Humor/Brave Minority Voices/Stress-free Summer Reads!" Section of your bookstore to your hands, it doesn't matter…If my childhood, teens, and twenties were about wanting people to like me, now I want people to know me.
Why Not Me? is a collection of essays divided in four sections:
For the Ladies - Essays about beauty and friendship ("Try to befriend a cinematographer and have him or her light you wherever you go.")
Take This Job and Love It - Life lessons about success and the ups and downs of working on The Mindy Project. Bad Sport was a favorite in this section.
Love, Dating, and Boys Who Ru(i)n The World - Relationships, most notably Soup Snakes, a touching essay about her "weird as hell" relationship with B.J. Novak.
All the Opinions You Will Ever Need - Confidence and self-acceptance. I loved her Harvard Law School Class Day Speech. There is a section of it which is sort of a love letter to the USA and it is really heartfelt.
• If you believe in yourself and work hard, your dreams will come true.
• Well… I guess the people who work hard whose dreams don't come true don't get to write books about it, so we never really find out what happens to them. So…
• If you believe in yourself and work hard, you have a fighting shot at having your dreams come true.
One of my favorite essays was A Perfect Courtship In My Alternate Life, about an imaginary version of Mindy in an alternate life as a Latin teacher in New York. I wasn't sold at first, but I gradually became more captivated by fake Mindy's fantasy relationship with Sam, a grumpy history teacher. It became one of my favorite essays, because of how down-to-earth and ridiculously detailed her fantasy life was! Perfect romantic comedy in essay form. I also loved One of The President's Men, which was about her relationship with one of President Obama's aides. As someone whose perception of the White House has also been 100% shaped by Aaron Sorkin and a fan of celebrity gossip, I just enjoyed living vicariously through Mindy on that one!
The truth is, if I were going to lose weight successfully, I would have to think about what I eat constantly. I cannot imagine a life more boring and a more time-consuming obsession than being preoccupied with watching what I eat. I mean maybe being in a coma would be more boring, but then at least you're free to dream about all your favorite foods.
Mindy's writing style is conversational, so Why Not Me? is perfect for audiobook. She is the voice narrator and it was great, because it feels like a phone conversation with an extremely successful and hilarious friend. It is a little less than 5 hours long, much shorter than most audiobooks. I did check out the ebook too, because I hate missing out on the pictures! The chapter "A Day in the Life of Mindy Kaling" is really dependent on captioned photographs (and that chapter wasn't in the table of contents for my audiobook, so I am not 100% sure it was there!).
(On the ending of a relationship) Sometimes a story just needs an ending, and I used to not be creative enough person to think of an ending to a romantic story that isn't a wedding or a death. This story didn't end in fireworks, because the truth is, fireworks are something from my twenties. I could have made fireworks, but I chose to make a nuanced memory of a person who is neither a hero nor a villain in my life.
Why Not Me? is a fast and entertaining read (or listen). I'd probably listen to it again if I needed something to cheer me up!
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you don’t got it? Flaunt it. ’Cause what are we even doing here if we’re not flaunting it?”
I
Show More
love Mindy Kaling way too much to be completely objective about her books! Why Not Me? picks up where the first book left off, taking place primarily during the production of The Mindy Project. I really enjoyed listening to this book. I love Mindy's observations and honest insights and I laughed a lot. It is fluffy and entertaining, with a good mix of humor and important life lessons. Mindy realizes she is a role model and includes really sensible advice for young women, especially those in their late teens and twenties. It is more even in tone than Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, which had a few chapters that read like straight biography. If you're reading this, you're probably a woman. Or perhaps you're a gay man getting a present for your even gayer friend. Maybe you accidentally bought this thinking it was the Malala book. However this book made its way from the "Female Humor/Brave Minority Voices/Stress-free Summer Reads!" Section of your bookstore to your hands, it doesn't matter…If my childhood, teens, and twenties were about wanting people to like me, now I want people to know me.
Why Not Me? is a collection of essays divided in four sections:
For the Ladies - Essays about beauty and friendship ("Try to befriend a cinematographer and have him or her light you wherever you go.")
Take This Job and Love It - Life lessons about success and the ups and downs of working on The Mindy Project. Bad Sport was a favorite in this section.
Love, Dating, and Boys Who Ru(i)n The World - Relationships, most notably Soup Snakes, a touching essay about her "weird as hell" relationship with B.J. Novak.
All the Opinions You Will Ever Need - Confidence and self-acceptance. I loved her Harvard Law School Class Day Speech. There is a section of it which is sort of a love letter to the USA and it is really heartfelt.
• If you believe in yourself and work hard, your dreams will come true.
• Well… I guess the people who work hard whose dreams don't come true don't get to write books about it, so we never really find out what happens to them. So…
• If you believe in yourself and work hard, you have a fighting shot at having your dreams come true.
One of my favorite essays was A Perfect Courtship In My Alternate Life, about an imaginary version of Mindy in an alternate life as a Latin teacher in New York. I wasn't sold at first, but I gradually became more captivated by fake Mindy's fantasy relationship with Sam, a grumpy history teacher. It became one of my favorite essays, because of how down-to-earth and ridiculously detailed her fantasy life was! Perfect romantic comedy in essay form. I also loved One of The President's Men, which was about her relationship with one of President Obama's aides. As someone whose perception of the White House has also been 100% shaped by Aaron Sorkin and a fan of celebrity gossip, I just enjoyed living vicariously through Mindy on that one!
The truth is, if I were going to lose weight successfully, I would have to think about what I eat constantly. I cannot imagine a life more boring and a more time-consuming obsession than being preoccupied with watching what I eat. I mean maybe being in a coma would be more boring, but then at least you're free to dream about all your favorite foods.
Mindy's writing style is conversational, so Why Not Me? is perfect for audiobook. She is the voice narrator and it was great, because it feels like a phone conversation with an extremely successful and hilarious friend. It is a little less than 5 hours long, much shorter than most audiobooks. I did check out the ebook too, because I hate missing out on the pictures! The chapter "A Day in the Life of Mindy Kaling" is really dependent on captioned photographs (and that chapter wasn't in the table of contents for my audiobook, so I am not 100% sure it was there!).
(On the ending of a relationship) Sometimes a story just needs an ending, and I used to not be creative enough person to think of an ending to a romantic story that isn't a wedding or a death. This story didn't end in fireworks, because the truth is, fireworks are something from my twenties. I could have made fireworks, but I chose to make a nuanced memory of a person who is neither a hero nor a villain in my life.
Why Not Me? is a fast and entertaining read (or listen). I'd probably listen to it again if I needed something to cheer me up!
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you don’t got it? Flaunt it. ’Cause what are we even doing here if we’re not flaunting it?”
Show Less
LibraryThing member Dreesie
I have no doubt that Mindy Kaling is very funny in person, but it does not transfer well to paper/audio.
By far my favorite part of this book was the last section, about girls and confidence, which was not even supposed to be funny. And it was not funny, it was just good.
The bit on her
By far my favorite part of this book was the last section, about girls and confidence, which was not even supposed to be funny. And it was not funny, it was just good.
The bit on her
Show More
daydream-about-her-unfamous-regular-life was just bad. Not funny, very repetitive, and if I hadn't been listening to this in the middle of a 5-mile walk I probably would have either given up or at the very least skipped that chapter. I was listening on Libby and have no idea how to skip ahead. Show Less
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
There were parts of this I loved and parts of this I hated averaging it out to be okay. I was a little bit disappointed b/c I loved the first one.
LibraryThing member brakketh
An enjoyable light read. I am always torn by the vapid persona that Kaling presents though part of me wonders if she is not just putting into words some of those thoughts that we all have. Favourite piece was the final essay on how to be confident.
LibraryThing member Bodagirl
I love her! Honest and funny with some great stories
LibraryThing member mirikayla
3.5 stars. 90 percent frivolous and fun, 10 percent actual awesome shit. Her last couple pages make you feel like it was a much more important book than it was the rest of the time.
"People's reaction to me is sometimes, 'Uch, I just don't like her. I hate how she thinks she is so great.' But it's
"People's reaction to me is sometimes, 'Uch, I just don't like her. I hate how she thinks she is so great.' But it's
Show More
not that I think I'm so great. I just don't hate myself. I do idiotic things all the time and I say crazy stuff I regret, but I don't let everything traumatize me. And the scary thing I have noticed is that some people feel really uncomfortable around women who don't hate themselves." Show Less
LibraryThing member Narshkite
What can you say about Mindy? She is smart, funny, honest, the perfect best friend (other than her taste in music, its abysmal!) I listened to this in the car (and I recommend this one in audio form with Mindy talking at you) during a tough week where I was both sick as a dog and slammed at work,
Show More
and I smiled a whole lot. Worth the price of admission for her Harvard Law speech. Show Less
LibraryThing member Writermala
I read the first book just recently so this book felt a bit like too much of the same thing. It was funny but somewhat repetitive. I'd have to give it a Meh. Sorry Mindy!
LibraryThing member ardvisoor
I haven't read/listened to many Autobiography books so I might not be the best person to review or rate this book, but I do . It was funny but not so much,at least I didn't drop it and enjoyed some of it (not the first quarter).
My favorite part was her speech at Harvard.
My favorite part was her speech at Harvard.
LibraryThing member foggidawn
I picked this up because I was in the mood for something fun and fluffy, and I had enjoyed Kaling's first book. It fit the bill nicely. If you also enjoyed Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, you'll probably like this one, too.
LibraryThing member Bertha_
In my opinion, the first half was a little 'meh'... then I either really got into it or the book got really good. Either way, by the end I wanted to happily clap. It IS a great book! The very last paragraph being one of my favorites, "Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel
Show More
entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn't always means your parents. If you do that, you will be fine." ...Yep, great read!! Show Less
LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35
Great, fun reading - the kind I wish more celebrities would write. Mindy Kaling is a comedian, so her book is filled with plenty of humor and personal antidotes, but she also comes across as refreshingly honest, especially about life in Los Angeles, how she feels about her work and her body, and
Show More
what she thinks is behind her success. Highly recommended for any young woman today. Show Less
LibraryThing member PlanCultivateCreate
Witty, funny and entertaining.
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — Humor — 2016)
Original language
English
Original publication date
2015-09-15