Is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)

Before The Mindy Project and The Office made her a household name, Mindy Kaling was a comedy-obsessed kid from Massachusetts, the daughter of Indian immigrant parents, trying to figure out how a girl who looked like her and thought like her was ever going to make it in show business. In this debut collection of essays, she tells that story with the same fast, self-deprecating wit that made her a breakout writer and performer.

Ranging from her awkward childhood and intense best friendships to her early struggles in New York (including the two-woman off-Broadway play about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon that got her noticed) and her life inside a network television writers' room, Kaling holds forth on everything from the right way to make a party guest list to why she loves romantic comedies, why she's a little afraid of skinny women, and what she really thinks about dieting, dating, and Hollywood beauty standards.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is warm, breezy, and consistently funny — part memoir, part comic manifesto from a writer who is happy to admit her insecurities and just as happy to tell you exactly what she wants.