You'll Grow Out of It

Starred review from May 9, 2016
Comedian Klein, head writer of Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, hilariously navigates the world of 21st-century adulthood, adding levity to the difficult stage of life for millennial women in the thick of it. From mundane topics (lingerie) to more significant ones (childbirth), Klein’s refreshing anecdotes explore the facets of being a modern woman with raw honesty and indelible wit. She proffers sound advice on love lost, fashion, sexism, and careers, mining her own experiences with oddball introspection. Readers journey along with Klein as she shares stories, such as attending her sister’s conservative Jewish wedding ceremony at Disney World, as well as the everyday elements of life, such as an exploration of her recent, somewhat guilt-ridden relationship with internet porn. Never afraid to share insights and reveal the raw truth behind her own stories, Klein makes readers laugh while inspiring them, a feat that calls to mind the work of the late Nora Ephron. This uplifting and uproarious collection of personal essays will be repeatedly shared among friends.

Starred review from June 1, 2016
From childhood to motherhood, comedian Klein's fresh takes on the perplexities of womanhood in America.Head writer and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning Inside Amy Schumer, the author demonstrates storytelling verve and instincts for the absurd as she targets outlandish ideas about and expectations of women. With her polished skills, honed on the gritty comedy club circuit, The Moth radio series, and as a TV writer, Klein crafts spirited gems that run through readers' heads like a sharp sitcom. In "How I Became a Comedian," the author tracks her career in vignettes of ambition, insecurity, and fear of performing. She has been told that doing stand-up is a brave act, but she disagrees. Any courage she has found grew out of a "desperate, aching need," and it took her years of therapy before she could get onstage. In the meantime, she was successful writing comedy for other people. Joan Rivers' "force and lust and decisiveness" were inspirations for Klein to finally make the leap. Throughout the book, there is no shortage of ludicrous behavior to riff on. Having never quite outgrown her tomboy spirit, she's confounded by the objectified images of women that persistently invade the female psyche, hers included. In "Bar Method and the Secrets of Beautiful Women," Klein chronicles her suffering through tortuous exercise in hopes of a tighter backside. In the hilarious "Lingerie Dilemma," the author, a cotton underwear sort of gal, prepares for a date with a new paramour by braving a French lingerie store where she tries on scanty undies under the watchful eyes of the "impossibly thin and beautiful" Frenchwomen who all look like Charlotte Gainsbourg. Ultimately, she writes, "lingerie is never really worth the agita." In the end, though, all the aggravation that comes her way pays off in this lively, irreverent collection, leaving the impression of a strong woman with a sharp eye for the ludicrous. A gifted comedian turns the anxieties, obsessions, insecurities, and impossible-to-meet expectations that make up human nature into laughter.

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Starred review from July 1, 2016
Comedian, comedy writer, and television producer Klein admits up front that she's a tomman, a grown-up version of a tomboy. Later, she says she's a humble feminist. Perhaps the two are identical. Perhaps not. But no matter, for what she really is is exceedingly clever, as she proves in this collection of semiautobiographical essays that follow, all of which are, if not laugh-out-loud funny, at least what the old Liberty magazine used to call chucklesome. Her subjectsshopping for underwear (excuse melingerie), dating a cad, getting engaged (not to the cad), shopping for a wedding dress, etc.are vaguely quotidian but offered with a slightly off-kilter sensibility that engages and holds our interest, even when we don't recognize some of the many allusions that are a substantial part of the author's humor (What are Dansko clogs? Who is Charlotte Gainsbourg? Happily, another more universally accessible part of her humor is the droll simile: seeing a suddenly unrecognizable friend walking down the aisle is like seeing your beloved Chihuahua in a neon Speedo; every Anthropologie store feels like the manger in which Zooey Deschanel was born. If her subjects are sometimes ordinary, her take is not, for there is never a doubt that, at heart, she's a comedian (she writes about becoming one in the book's best essay), and reading her book is like watching herdoubtless superbstand-up act. Enjoy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2016

Klein, a comedian and head writer of Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer, in her debut essay collection centers on her awkward coming of age, which she cheekily admits extends well into her 30s. As a self-identified "late bloomer" and "tom man" (a tomboy who "never grows out of it"), Klein reflects on her bumpy path to womanhood in order to comment on American gender roles and gender role expectations during this time of third-wave feminism, that is, during a time when there aren't supposed to be gender expectations. The tension leaves many women, as she sharply observes, not feeling like women at all. As Klein was born and raised in Manhattan during the 1970s and 1980s, she has lived through this transition and contradictory messaging toward women. While some readers may feel alienated by the author's white, middle-class perspective, her humor often strikes on the universal. VERDICT A complete pleasure to read; it's hard to not keep turning the page, impossible to not laugh out loud. [See Prepub Alert, 11/30/15.]--Meagan Lacy, Guttman Community Coll., CUNY

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016

Having worked as a stand-up comedian for ten years and now making her mark as head writer and executive producer of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Inside Amy Schumer, Klein offers a memoir-cum-mediation on growing up tomboyish and being a modern woman. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 3, 2016
Klein draws nicely on her own brand of stand-up comedy in bringing this collection of her autobiographical essays to life. Her delivery style seems akin to a confessional between an honest and approachable woman to a close friend over drinks or coffee, as opposed to a larger-than-life stage monologue. She utilizes a deadpan tone to convey the ironies and complexities of female identity across ages, whether it’s teen obsessions with bra size and hair imperfections, or the self-esteem roller-coaster ride of single life and dating, or the struggles of balancing pregnancy and motherhood as a successful television writer and producer. Klein’s anecdote about having to make special arrangements for her breast pump while walking down the Emmy red carpet captures the book’s essence with particular clarity, as the comic tension builds with angst that connects on an intimate level to her audience. Klein’s approach allows her to take on edgy topics of self-awareness and self-empowerment without coming across as heavy-handed. A Grand Central hardcover.