Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely love this book! Not loved, I finished reading it, but I still love it. If you asked five years ago if I would relate so well to the chick on the office I would have laughed.

I love the format of the book. She speaks like a best fried over brunch. When she breaks down into lists it makes what she's saying so much funnier than if it was just a really long passage. Additionally, this is one of the better memoirs I've read in terms of flow. She easily transitions from one topic to the next and they make sense in the order presented.

I will be honest, I probably liked this book so much because I can relate so much to her. I love that she loves celebrity gossip and can have a long conversation with little girls about which member of Nsync they should marry and then write for a witty ironic show like the Office.

A rather insignificant quote that stood out to me was right before her list of "My favorite eleven moments in comedy.": "A disclaimer about these: they are all pretty recent, from the last ten or fifteen years. My boss Greg Daniels was appalled I had never heard of Jack Benny or Ernie Kovacs before I started working at The Office. I am sorry I'm not obsessed with The Honeymooners or The Great Dictator, or even Caddyshack or other classic comedy from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. This list is also pretty mainstream, so other comedy nerds will be mad I didn't include alternative comedy stuff."

As someone with an English degree who had to sit through "What's your favorite book?" at the start of every new course, I can tell you the pain and annoyance of getting the looks from pretentious peers when you name a "Best Seller" as your favorite.

I could continue to gush for the rest of the characters allowed to me but I wont. Just know, if you're an awkward 20 something and new in your field this book is perfect to get you in a happy mindset.

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Saturday April 11: Weekly update, +1 entry for participating. Topic: Books you would like to suggest to your library.

This week I actually managed to complete my first book of April. It was Amy Poehler's "Yes Please" I wont go too much into it, you can find my review on Goodreads or here. My short opinion on the book is you should go into it viewing it like your vodka aunt giving you life advice instead of "I want to know what Amy Poehler's favorite color was when she was 5." Cause you're not gonna know, she makes it a point to let you know she doesn't like to share personal information.

She does however give some pretty valid advice, especially for young girls. (I would have much rather had a chapter on her "Amy Poehler's Smart Girls" than why she hates cell phones.)

And now for this week's topic: Books you would like to suggest to your library.

This is tricky. I'm fairly new to my library so I haven't had a chance to go through their entire collection to really find anything they don't have. The other issue is my library is apart of the Central Libraries Consortium which is made up of 14 central Ohio libraries which means I can reserve and checkout books from all 14 libraries and they have a total of 4.5 million items. So, I mean if I can come up with something they don't have it would be pretty surprising.

That being said, there is one topic in which I have noticed my library is lacking. A couple months ago I got kinda obsessed with genealogy. This was partly brought on by my mother getting me into Outlander. That makes sense when you realize my mother's maiden name is Walker (like the cookies) so we're apart of the Wallace Clan (like the Mel Gibson movie). This was also around the time I had finally crossed the aisle from my beloved fiction section into the non-fiction stacks.

This is what I found:

From that white book on the top shelf on the far left to the second book of the bottom row is the entire section of books devoted to Scotland in the library (that would be 13 books in total). IRELAND has 2 whole shelves and Scotland can't even make up half of one. Also, 95% of the books are travel books written pre-2000.

I understand I can simply request a book from another library, but it's just depressing to see.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Going to be completely honest, I read this book because I loved Tina Fey's BossyPants. I also really like Parks & Rec (It's currently playing on my T.V. right now). For the most part, it was a funny memoir. Amy's personality came through well in her writing, and I enjoyed the additions such as the chapter written by Seth Meyers.

It is in my opinion that you shouldn't read this book expecting a typical memoir. You learn some things about Amy but nothing below surface level. There's rare moments where she does go into details about her life that are gems, but most events of her life are skimmed over. Not much focus is given to the actual events and situations but how she handled them and how you should handle similar situations.

This memoir is about following "Do as I say, not as I do."

Perhaps if the book was written later after Parks & Rec, or after her divorce was finalized it would feel less like a work in progress. Both of those aspects seemed to huge to her life and both are still opened, unfinished chapters that still made the book.

Lastly, the conclusion left a sour taste in my mouth. As a millennial I'm tired of hearing about how technology is horrible, and how no one makes eye contact anymore, and how it was so much better when people used to actually talk to each other. Especially after the last chapter of visiting orphanages in post-earthquake Haiti it felt odd and disjointed to end on that note. The only positive I can give the conclusion is that it worked to summarize her life in connection to communication.

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April 7: Top Ten Characters You'd Like To Check In With

I have this issue that has followed me for many years. The issue is that all my favorites die. Literally. I get sad when I find a favorite character because they will ultimately die. Only once has this not happened and then I had to reread the last time he was mentioned because I wasn't convinced he had actually survived.

However, I managed to figure out ten I would like to check in with who were not dead or who haven't already been checked in with or who I really didn't care about. So, in no particular order;

1 & 2.) Ron and Hermione Granger-Weasley from The Harry Potter series: I'd like to check in with them pre-epilogue, mainly to prove that they are the OTP to end all OTP's and they're perfect for each other and did not in fact fight all the time and have to go to couple's therapy. Especially since they didn't get together until the very end of the last book I'd like to have a few moments of adorable couple-ness. 

3 & 4.) Marianne and Colonel Brandon from Sense & Sensibility: This is a bit like the one before. I took a class where we read Sense & Sensibility and everyone said there was no way Marianne and Brandon could have been happy. I wish to prove them wrong. I'd also like to see Brandon getting to be a real daddy.

5.) R from Warm Bodies: I mean I feel like to die, get turned into a zombie, and then get turned back into a human would be pretty interesting and worth a check in to make sure everything is going good. Did him and Julie stick it through? Did being a zombie mess with the whole "ability to have kids" thing? Is this an issue? Plus, post-apocalypse world coming back would be cool to hear about.

6.) Haymitch Abernathy from The Hunger Games: LITERALLY my only fave who survived. Really, I just want to read more about him. I don't care if he's sober and married to Effie or drunk and alone, I just wanna hang with Haymitch more.

7.) Snape's Headmaster Portrait from Harry Potter: Spoiler alert; the first fave to not make it. Luckily, there's a loophole; he has a portrait with his personality that talks and moves. I'd like to see how he's doing being stuck between Dumbledore and McGonagall.

8.) Ponyboy from The Outsiders: I have a thing about kids from YA novels and wanting to see what they're like grownup. Kinda curious how he handled the seventies and which of the greasers ended up having to go to Vietnam. I know he was in, I believe it was "That was then, this is now" but I want more.

9.) Baudelaire Kids from A Series of Unfortunate Events: Again, another case of "I wonder how all the traumatic experiences messed up this kid's head". I kinda just want to know what they're doing and how stable they are.

10.) Kate from The Taming of the Shrew: "Hey Kate, so in that last speech....you were being sarcastic, right?" 

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Adding to my list of 2015 challenges I will also be participating in the Reading England challenge. The challenge is simple; to travel the historic 39 counties of England through books. I have had a long love affair with England (if you can count anything in the life of a 22 year old as long). The majority of books I typically read take place in England and so this challenge is a natural fit for me. 

I intend to be a level four participant, meaning reading books that take place in 12+ counties of England.

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It all came together when I managed to finish a book just two days after getting an email that one of my requested books had arrived at the library. Perfect timing to go. While I've been chipping away at "The Greatest Traitor" by Ian Mortimer, for April I have two books that I've really just started.

Literally just started Yes Please by Amy Poehler cause it was the book I picked up Thursday. I've read Tina Fey's "Boosypants" and while I typically like to think of myself as a Tina (since I'm not nearly as optimistic as Amy) I'm getting on with Amy cause we had similar upbringing. The entire chapter of looking for danger and coming up with stories of danger as a child was basically my childhood. I used to pretend I was in trouble even when I wasn't just cause there was literally nothing else to do. I feel you Amy.

Now for the #ReadingMyLibrary challenge this week we're to tell you a bit about our libraries. Mine is fairly new to me. I just moved, you see. And to be honest, as I mentioned in my last post, I was not a frequenter of my hometown library. Technically, I have four libraries within 5 miles of my house. This is just the one I frequent more. I might do another post as my second most frequent library recently got a brand new building.

It's apart of the Ohio Library system, so while not apart of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system we can still request books from it. It's a modest 2 story library, a far cry from my beautiful 11 story campus library I was used to for 4 years. 

Sadly, when I was there someone was sitting at the table I typically occupy so I took a picture of my second most visited area. The study area balcony over the video section. I prefer the tables in the back of the stacks, it's a lot more quiet back there as most people don't walk back there. And typically little kids run around under the balcony. 

And just for nostalgia sake. My campus library, my beautiful Thompson Library, recently named as the second most beautiful college library in the country (on some list by someone, but I agree).

I will admit I used to have a weird problem with libraries. I've since blamed it on my hometown being small and in the Bible belt so our library, as I one day told my mother, "Doesn't have a book published after 1982". Despite this I used to spend a lot of time there as a child, it was a good place for a single mother to drop her daughter off during the summer. Since moving to the city I have joined two libraries and checked out more books than I did the entire span of my later adolescence (junior high and high school).

So, in an attempt to combine two of my new hobbies I will be participating in the Reading My Library Challenge taking place in the month of April 2015. A month long celebration of libraries, including a library scavenger hunt the week of April 15-30 and a giveaway! You can find out more about the challenge here.

The three books in the "TBR" list for April are



(I'm currently reading two other books from the library but I'm well into them)