“There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.”

There is no doubt that Mindy Kaling is hilarious. I have to admit though, before reading this book I didn’t really know who she was, I’d seen her face when my boyfriend was watching The Office but other than that I had no idea. I picked up this book in a charity shop for something like £2 because the title appealed to me and I’d heard that it was funny, in those respects I wasn’t disappointed.

This is Mindy’s first book it isn’t an autobiography as such but features prominent parts of her life and, well, to me it was like you were chatting with an old friend. Mindy is funny, brutally honest and best of all seems just like the rest of us. She was an awkward teenager, can be an awkwards adult and has also had those, oh my god what am I doing with my life moments that we all have. She doesn’t pretend that she’s totally happy and over the fact that she has her own show and was part of one of the most popular shows on American TV, in fact she seems excited and frankly a bit geeky about it all, in a good way of course.

The book covers everything from growing up as a chubby indian kid, boyfriends (or lack thereof), sex, careers, embarrassing yourself. It has a feminine charm, but is not sickly sweet. It’s ballsy, without being too in your face. There seems to be a good balance in the book and, of course, it’s laugh out loud funny too. I wouldn’t say it’s the funniest book I’ve ever read, some of the jokes made me uncomfortable but I think that was more because of how I feel about certain topics rather than being outright rude. It’s obvious while reading that Mindy is a fantastic writer, it isn’t easy to pull off written comedy but she definitely manages.

I also found it great that Mindy stands up for being feminine. She declares her undying love for romantic comedies, which I am partial to I spend the majority of my teenage years endlessly watching them. She talks about clothes and diets and a lot of girly things that people have judged her for in the past, basically I love her for being herself and not caring what others think. She says “I think of myself as a smart and funny person, but I am very girly, and in the past I’ve been hurt by people who criticise me for liking things they think are beneath me, like shopping or whatever, and the people who give me the hardest time about it are women. I think it may be because there are so few women in comedy and so there’s a feeling that we shouldn’t sell women out, but I don’t see talking about fashion as selling women out.”

I gave this book 4 stars in total ****. It was a funny and engaging book to read, perfect for something to pick up, chill out and feel like there are a lot of other people who think, feel and act the same as you, hell some of them even get famous! The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because while it was good, like I said there were some jokes I wasn’t entirely comfortable with and there were small parts that dragged. With that in mind as soon as I finished the next book was on my wishlist because without a doubt Mindy and write and she is funny. I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it, I can’t wait to see what she does next!