Reading Challenge: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

I've been meaning to read this book since it came out and I have just never gotten around to it, so I was super excited when at my last book club meeting a few of the girls had mentioned that they really wanted to read it. It wasn't on the "official" list of books to chose from but we're pretty relaxed in the way we choose books to read and since four of the five people that showed up to that meeting had been wanting to read it and failed to actually start, we thought it must be meant to be!

Mindy Kaling, one of the writers and stars of The Office and the new show The Mindy Project writes as if she is talking to a friend. This is one of those genre-less books that's basically just a bunch of funny stories. I guess if I had to give it a genre I would call it a memoir since the stories are about her life. But typically I think of memoirs a little differently. This book is more like a compliation of stort stories. In her introduction she says if this book takes you longer than two days to read there is something wrong, but I disagree. It does read fast and if you're the type to just sit down and read a whole book in two days (which I am one of those people) it can easily be read in that amount of time, however what's great about it is that you don't have to. You can stretch it out of the course of a week like I did, getting a little funny story every night before you go to bed. There's no overarching plot so there's no suspense to keep you reading and you can just enjoy it in bursts.

I really like Mindy Kaling's writing style, it's the kind of voice I want my novel about the disasterous love life of my sister to have. First person, and reads like a conversation or letter to a friend. I love it, it makes it feel personal and certain jokes are just really natural in that style.

I would recommend Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me to friends, especially if you like to read books by comedy writers or stand up comedians. It's along the same lines as Tina Fey's Bossy Pants and Ellen Degeneres' Seriously I'm Kidding, which are great books! I don't think Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me is quite as funny as those books I just mentioned, but that doesn't mean that reading this book didn't make me want to be best friends with Mindy Kaling because it totally did. We would so be friends. And I think that's sort of wonderful when you can read a book and completely fall in friend-love with someone as if by reading the book you really know them.

Check it out if, like me, you've been meaning to read it and just haven't gotten around to it. It's a light and funny read with moments of laugh out loud humor that I think you'll enjoy!

Reading challenge: 9/50