[Book] Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling - #18 in Memoir 📚
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling [Book Review]
✨ Best Memoir Books ✨
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
This memoir is exactly what you'd hope for if you're a fan of Mindy Kaling: funny, warm, self-deprecating, and brimming with charm. In it, Kaling traces her journey from a chubby, awkward kid who obsessed over SNL and Monty Python, to a rising comedy writer and actress on The Office, long before The Mindy Project launched her into showrunner territory.
She writes with refreshing honesty about feeling like an outsider as a kid, her unexpected breakthrough with the Off-Broadway play Matt & Ben, her early days in writers' rooms (including a brief stint at SNL), and her love-hate relationship with Hollywood. There are a few musings on romance, but this isn’t a tell-all—it’s more like a catch-up session with your funniest friend over wine and rom-coms.
Kaling also touches on being an Indian American woman in entertainment and not fitting the Hollywood mold—subjects she handles with candor but never leans on as her defining themes. This isn’t a memoir about identity or struggle. It’s a celebration of quirks, career twists, and comedic timing.
Highlights include the hilarious chapter "Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Real," where she brilliantly skewers the trope of the impossibly hot, inexplicably clumsy heroine (because yes, we’re all tired of watching flawless women trip over air). Also, don’t miss her list of fake—but somehow entirely believable—Hollywood movies, like Crest Whitestrips or Street Stupid (the sequel to Street Smart). They’re satire, but only barely.
Bottom line: this is smart, joyful, easy reading—perfect for a plane ride or a mental palate cleanser between heavier books. If you enjoy Kaling’s humor, you’ll love spending time in her world.
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Don’t miss out on this captivating journey!
This memoir isn’t just a life story—it’s a layered journey of discovery, filled with hard truths and unexpected turns that draw you in and keep you thinking long after the final page.