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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Heartfelt and hilarious essays from the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning actress, star of the Netflix original series Beef, and two-time member of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year list
“A collection of letters to her baby girls that are barn-burning reflections on being a working mom, marriage, sex, and more. If you’ve ever wanted to have Ali Wong’s signature voice in your head for 200-plus pages, now’s your chance.”—Glamour
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Variety, Chicago Tribune, Glamour, New York In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so strongly that she even became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads. The sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she’s learned from a life in comedy and reveals stories from her life off stage, including the brutal single life in New York (i.e. the inevitable confrontation with erectile dysfunction), reconnecting with her roots (and drinking snake blood) in Vietnam, tales of being a wild child growing up in San Francisco, and parenting war stories. Though addressed to her daughters, Ali Wong’s letters are absurdly funny, surprisingly moving, and enlightening (and gross) for all. Praise for Dear Girls
“Fierce, feminist, and packed with funny anecdotes.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Wong] spins a volume whose pages simultaneously shock and satisfy. . . . Dear Girls is not so much a real-talk handbook as it is a myth-puncturing manifesto.”—Vogue
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Heartfelt and hilarious essays from the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning actress, star of the Netflix original series Beef, and two-time member of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year list
“A collection of letters to her baby girls that are barn-burning reflections on being a working mom, marriage, sex, and more. If you’ve ever wanted to have Ali Wong’s signature voice in your head for 200-plus pages, now’s your chance.”—Glamour
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Variety, Chicago Tribune, Glamour, New York In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so strongly that she even became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads. The sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she’s learned from a life in comedy and reveals stories from her life off stage, including the brutal single life in New York (i.e. the inevitable confrontation with erectile dysfunction), reconnecting with her roots (and drinking snake blood) in Vietnam, tales of being a wild child growing up in San Francisco, and parenting war stories. Though addressed to her daughters, Ali Wong’s letters are absurdly funny, surprisingly moving, and enlightening (and gross) for all. Praise for Dear Girls
“Fierce, feminist, and packed with funny anecdotes.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Wong] spins a volume whose pages simultaneously shock and satisfy. . . . Dear Girls is not so much a real-talk handbook as it is a myth-puncturing manifesto.”—Vogue
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the book
Chapter 1
How I Trapped Your Father
Dear Girls,
Your dad is the (if we are divorced by the time you read this, please skip to the next sentence) best, but I didn’t just find him overnight. In the fall of 2009, I had been living in NYC for a year and had been unlucky when it came to love and casual sex.
Well, let’s just get right to it: I dated a series of men who had issues getting it up. It felt like a curse. Five guys in a row lost their boners in the middle of getting busy. Part of me blamed the Raynaud’s disease, a condition that was passed on to me by my father. I have extremely poor circulation to my hands and feet, to the point where in the cold, they will turn blue and feel like pain icicles. So, especially in the New York fall or wintertime, my bare hands, much like the hands of Rogue from the X-Men, could suck the life out of a man’s erect penis.
After the first two guys that I hooked up with in NYC went soft on me, I grew extremely self-conscious of my White Walker fingers. By the third time I started making out with a new guy, I made sure to simultaneously warm my hands up by furiously rubbing them together and breathing into them like a homeless character in a theater production, next to a papier mâché trash-can fire.
I felt very good about this new method and used it on a man that I met through comedy friends at a bar. He lived in Coney Island. At the time, I was staying in SoHo, so he might as well have lived in Pyongyang. It took an hour and a half to get to his place by train, but it felt like three because we were both so horny.
He was extremely stupid. I know I’ve confessed that I’m no genius, but this guy had a lower back tattoo of Chinese characters, didn’t know who Abraham Lincoln was (this is for real), and couldn’t stop talking about how The Crow was the greatest movie ever made (it’s good, however Clueless is a masterpiece). But I hadn’t gotten successfully laid in so long and was very eager to flex my new technique, so I made my way to Trash Island.
I’d thought the whole point of living far away in an outer borough was to afford yourself a nicer apartment with more space. This dude did have a queen-sized, four-poster bed, but . . . not in a good way. It was old and dusty and made me feel less like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and more like that weird sick kid in The Secret Garden who sleeps in a tunic and is allergic to the sun. He passionately threw me onto the bed, but a sudden, deafening bed creak rendered the mood DOA. I would’ve believed him if he’d told me that a hundred people over the past two centuries had spent their final days dying of scurvy in this rickety, termite-infested bed. His place was a shithole. But traveling to Coney Island is the New York subway ride equivalent of hiking Machu Picchu, and I’d reached the summit so I couldn’t back down now.
On the train, boat, and all the way up until I grabbed his penis, I had been consistently rubbing my hands together to keep the blood flowing. And he stayed hard. My method was sound! We were ready to move to the next level and I was finally going to pork a man I met at a bar like those bitches did in Sex and the City. But as soon as he made first contact with my vagina—which Raynaud’s does not affect—his boner melted into a wet Cheeto.
A total and oppressive silence filled the room. He didn’t even apologize, offer to eat me out, or make me a sandwich, which I felt was quite rude. I wanted to go home, but I was too poor to take a cab back and it was way too...
About the Author-
Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and a Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Female Actor for her role in the Netflix original limited series Beef. She has also released two hit Netflix comedy specials (Baby Cobra and Hard Knock Wife), stars in the Netflix original film Always Be My Maybe, and was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year in 2020 and 2023. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.
Reviews-
The comedian, actor, and writer distills years of advice into letters to her daughters. In her first book, Wong--whose Netflix stand-up specials, Hard Knock Wife and Baby Cobra, earned her a massive following--details how she met her husband; pregnancy, childbirth, and the messy chaos of parenting; New York during her early stand-up career, when bombing on stage honed her talents; her Vietnamese/Chinese upbringing; time at UCLA; and study abroad in Hanoi. Throughout these topical letters, her trademark candor is equal parts crass about sex, tender about her family's sacrifices, and sober about miscarriage, among other pains. A few letters are composed as lighthearted lists, including how to host a cheaper wedding: "Buy your dress on eBay," and "Get your hair done at a blow-out bar." On spotting authentic Asian restaurants, she writes, "Ninety-nine percent of the clientele should be Asian." The author's accounts of her initial forays into the comedy business and brushes with famous people add color and demonstrate the necessity of hard work, but it's behind-the-scenes memories of Wong's past that stand out for their pointed depiction of a Bay Area immigrant family. Her mother's unsentimental love, which the author grew to understand after visiting Vietnam herself, is palpable. Wong also lays bare her young adult years, rife with dating disasters, with amusing self-mockery. Digressions on womanhood are refreshing in their nuances, and pride mixes with conviction in the power of expanding comedy beyond an Asian audience. An afterword by Wong's husband gives insight on what it's like to fuel someone else's jokes. Under the raunchy writing--much of which repeats the highlights of Wong's act--there's familiar, reassuring optimism. About her mother, she writes, "she did her best to make me tough....She will always be there for me." Wong brings the same dedication here, where mistakes inspire wisecracking wisdom. A down-to-earth collection that is raw but not irreverent.
COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)
September 15, 2019 Comedian, writer, and actress Wong's first book is a series of letters to her two daughters, who are currently toddlers. Luckily, the frame works well even for readers who don't happen to be Wong's daughters?which, considering the girls' ages (and perhaps the unfiltered approach), will mean all readers for the foreseeable future. The letters address subjects like growing up as the much-younger sister of three older siblings, studying abroad, dating, working in comedy, getting married, and raising kids. Readers can expect both genuine LOLs and some pretty intimate truths, like the miscarriage Wong experienced, the prenup agreement that made her determined to keep pursuing her dreams, and the question she wishes people would stop asking. Wong has a lot of respect for failure, and thinks she was able to weather plenty of it because her family taught her to be "refreshingly rude and honest," and "humorlessly roasted" her. A touching afterword from Wong's husband adds another dimension and shares honest advice for navigating life with a famous, funny mom.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
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