I’ve been watching “The Office” for years.  And Mindy Kaling is pretty entertaining to follow on Twitter.  Her “Things I bought that I love” blog feature was the inspiration for my own occasional postings of “Things I Love That Start With…” So when I heard she had a book coming out, it was promptly on my pre-order list.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) is a humorous, sometimes poignant and always entertaining series of essays covering everything from Mindy’s childhood to the success of the “Matt and Ben” play she co-authored and co-starred in during college, all the way to her days as a writer for The Office.

Not all the essays are about showbusiness, or even comedy, but they are all entertaining. In fact, I read the whole thing between Tuesday and Wednesday nights this week. So, why did I love this one? I have a list.

1) Mindy is real.  Of course she’s real but I mean real in a not-Hollywood way. She doesn’t have a perfect figure. She admits she likes to eat. She says  “the reason is because” sometimes in the book and her editor didn’t even make her change it.

2) She celebrates her quirkiness. She even shows off her childhood pictures- big glasses, slightly chubby, somewhat androgynous looking- and proud of it

3) She doesn’t try to be all Hollywood cool- she admits to being a dork, and being geeked out by some of her celebrity encounters.

4) She’s authentic. The whole time I was reading, I felt like I could be sitting down with a girl friend, catching up on gossip.

5) She makes up revenge fantasies in her head to make working out easier.  Seriously. I make up stuff in my head all the time, but I haven’t tried this and now I am so going to.

6) When I read her pleas to married people on behalf of us singletons, I couldn’t help thinking that she knows my friends Amanda and Jim and Amanda hasn’t told me they are totally hanging out with Mindy Kaling.  Of course, she doesn’t really know them (I don’t think) but she might because the type of relationship she wants her married friends to have is what I think Amanda and Jim have, and it’s nice.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. This is just one of those books that was a true pleasure to read, and I really enjoyed it.