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review 2020-01-31 15:05
Dear Girls
Dear Girls - Ali Wong

Not too much to say except I really loved this collection of essays by Ali Wong. I got to know a little bit more about her, her family, her husband, and how she started off in comedy. She manages to infuse her essays to her daughters with love, laughter, and sometimes tears. I did love how this collection ended with a letter from her husband to their daughters too. The family seems very tight-knit, slightly manic at times, but ready to pull a knife on you if you screw with one of their own.

 

I have to say that I found myself nodding along with Wong during parts of this essay to her daughters. I love what she had to say about marrying someone within their own culture and how it just makes things easier because you get things that someone else would not. I also loved her thoughts on traveling abroad to experience different people, countries, and food. All of the food mentioned in this book made me ridiculously hungry too by the way. When I traveled through Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong years ago it felt like I finally came home. I ate everything I could and just went for whatever was put in front of me. I finally found countries that actually cooked food so hot it made the heat travel up through my ears. I was in heaven. 

 

Wong of course goes into how she met her now husband, how things were not perfect, still are not perfect, but they loved each other. It's also wonderful to see how she handles being the "breadmaker" in the family while he does things that are typically assigned to women. I think in America we still have that problem with men that stay at home are looked down upon by not only other people, but within their own families. Somehow stay at home husbands are not manly enough or something. But we don't say a word about how women are not womenly enough if they stay at home.


Wong's family sounds completely chaotic and I loved the stories about her parents, her sisters, and her brother. 


We also get such great insights into the comedy circuit and how she forced herself out there to play in front of audiences that were diverse in order to get better. If you just play in front of the same crowd of white men and women, how are you stretching yourself and growing?

 

Definitely would love to read another book from her in the future. 

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text 2020-01-24 21:21
Reading progress update: I've read 1%.
Dear Girls - Ali Wong

Beyond annoyed that BL defaulted to some random author called Tony Wong. I tried to fix twice and gave up. Also one thing I have noticed is there are now more genre selections when adding a book. Maybe that's what Booklikes fixed? 

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review 2014-10-29 00:00
Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story
Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story - Charlie McDowell It was light reading that was really funny in spots. It's a good story to pick up and read a chapter and put back down. Supposedly it was based on a true story but I got the feeling there was a lot of fictional stuff added. It didn't have much of a plot so I gave it 3 stars.
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review 2014-01-05 00:00
Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story
Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story - Charlie McDowell Those girls were so annoying, but I just couldn't stop laughing at their stupidity! I'm glad I don't have neighbours like them.
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review 2013-10-09 23:07
Dear Girls Above Me
Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story - Charlie McDowell

This was a fun read, but I had some issues with it.


Charlie McDowell* started the popular Dear Girls Above Me Twitter feed on a whim, and he got a book deal out of it. Twitter-to-Book deals always seem sketchy to me, but this one had gotten pretty good reviews, so I picked it up from the library. Like I said, it was fun, but as this is a supposed novelization of the feed, it doesn't even have the virtue of really being about McDowell's life, and in parts it seems like he really had to stretch it to make his 'character' have a believable arc, so the book wouldn't entirely read like it was a commercial ploy to exploit these two girls even further.


*He's the son of Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm McDowell, and to his credit, this isn't something he highlights in the book, except for the horrifying story of the time he caught one of his friends, er, jerking his sausage, to a blurry sex scene his mother had done in a film before he was even born.


Make no mistake, the things the girls say are ridiculous and hilarious, but shoehorning 'Charlie' in there as well just felt forced. The book ends with 'Charlie' supposedly having learned something from his interaction with the girls, but I'm sort of at a loss to figure out what that something is. If you just want something funny, you'll probably love this, though. And the ending was pretty great -- I laughed out loud in the coffee shop where I was reading. I won't spoil it too much, but I will tell you that it involved mice, a broken sewage pipe, and the girls not following directions.


If you're looking for a quick read you could do worse than this, but don't go in expecting anything deep.

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