Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling

I have to open by confessing a very deep and unshakeable personal bias against event looking at memoirs of famous folk, epseically if they're in the entertainment business. I'm not even sure when, where or how I developed this bias. (And it probably has to do more with snobbery than with any other, more lofty reason.) All I know is that when I see anything marketed as a biography / memoir of an even marginally famous person, my bullfighting hackles go up, my eyes, of their own volition, roll all the way to the back of my head (making, as you might imagine, for a very uncomfortable visual experience) and I have to shake my head peremptorily because it is so hard to be all rich and famous and under-doggy all at once and still to still write about yourself in a non-self-aggrandizing way.

This, mainly is why I kept ignoring Mindy Kaling's, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
Until last week.
While working on the South Asian Women Writers project, I ended up stalking this Aishwarya's blog (that's not me, y'all! That's a younger and so much cooler friend) and as it turns out, she said this about the book:

Unlike Fey and Moran, Kaling never actually mentions the word “feminism”, but there’s an implicit political stance in sections like these, and the book is all the better for them. 

After that, I had to read the book. (South Asian Woman Writer, Political Stance, Comic - totally outweighed celebrity memoir.)

Kaling's book is a quick and entertaining read.
She writes from the perspective of being South Asian in the United States. And (as someone thinking about raising a third culture child) I'm quite amazed at how easily she wears this aspect of her personality. I love that this doesn't dictate her tone or outlook. But it also does, y'all - I mean, being a child of immigrant professionals is a thing that frames Kaling's views without overpowering them.

All the stories that mention her parents and family make me want to meet them. Seriously. I'm not saying I'd take notes or anything from them, but I *do* want to meet the people who raised this brown kid to be so self-assured.*

Her stories made me laugh out loud more than once. She's funny and self-reflective, but almost never self-deprecatory. And the thing that I love the most - her stances. As Aisha points, she never says feminist, but devotes entire sections to the female body, strong women in television entertainment (Amy Poehler is, according to Kaling, every bit as cool and warm as she seems). The tone stays consistently sassy - yep,  even when she's narrating her "Poor in New York" stories and "I dated a Crappy Human Being" ones.

Towards the end, the book does taper off in terms of content. But really, I get the impression that she's said all she wants to say for now. I would like to see her revisit some of these sections in say, seven or eight years from now - I'm not sure that merits a book, but I'd love to hear whether ... you know she does the Poehler thing and calls her husband by his last name, or if she finds a person that she wants to be friends with. Or... you know, stuff about her life post Rainn Wilson and the Office, post The Mindy Project.

If nothing else, you should read this book to find out how Mindy Kaling is different than her on-screen role, Kelly Kapoor (from The Office). I still wouldn't buy it and store it for posterity. But I sure as hell recommend reading it.

Footnotes
*(I know, I know parents can only do so much, but when I meet particularly resolved-seeming foreign born desi kids, I want to, almost immediately, atleast watch their parents from a discreet distance to see what role they're playing, exactly.)