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Overview
“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 “Player” tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. (“I had been replaced by a younger model.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.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780804138161 |
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Publisher: | Crown Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 09/27/2016 |
Pages: | 240 |
Sales rank: | 47,522 |
Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author

Read an Excerpt
One evening last year, I was onstage at a Q&A in Manhattan hosted by a magazine to discuss my life and career. This was one of those fancy events where ticket prices are high, and there’s wine and cheese beforehand, and cocktails, but no real meal is served at any point. It made you wish you had just shushed the naysayers and brought three hot little sliders in your clutch to nibble at opportune moments. No one else seemed to mind the lack of food, though, because the theater was packed, primarily with an older, mostly white crowd.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Why Not Me?"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Mindy Kaling.
Excerpted by permission of Crown/Archetype.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Hello Again 1
For the Ladies 7
How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet's Confessions 8
Some Thoughts on Weddings 23
Mindy Kaling, Sorority Girl 28
(Minor) Fame Has Changed Me 41
Things to Bring to My Dinner Party 49
Player 52
Take This Job and Love It 65
How to Get Your Own TV Show (and Nearly Die of Anxiety) 67
Mindy Lahiri, MD, Everygirl, Mild Sociopath 84
On Being a Mentor, by Greg Daniels 86
I Love Sex Scenes! 90
Coming This Fall 96
A Day in the Life of Mindy Kaling 101
Bad Sport 115
Love, Dating, and Boys who Ru(i)n the World 121
Soup Snakes 123
One of the President's Men 133
A Perfectly Reasonable Request 155
A Perfect Courtship in My Alternate Life 158
All the Opinions You Will Ever Need 189
Unlikely Leading Lady 191
Harvard Law School Glass Day Speech 203
4 a.m. Worries 212
Why Not Me? 215
Acknowledgments 225
Photography Credits 227