About book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (2007)
Are you there Vodka? It’s Me ChelseaEverything about this book is clever, starting with the title. To any Judy Blume fan, the parody is obvious, but even the less-informed reader (to whom I will now impart the title of Blume’s novel, Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret) would find this title an apt one. Are you there Vodka? chronicles Chelsea Handler’s sexual antics across all realms, from weddings, to summer flings, to family vacations, and while the men (and midgets…) vary widely, one factor remains constant: her drink of choice, vodka. Handler’s writing is self-mocking, but in a comically arrogant sort of way. Her manner reminds me of the way men boast to one another in such hyperbolic terms that each man knows the other cannot be serious and probably, in fact, believe the exact opposite about themselves, compared to what they are saying. Still, their claims become increasingly more broad and bombastic, as if needing to declare, “yes I did!” and “yes I am!”Dry humor is the saving grace of this sort of comedic writing, because without it, Handler’s tales would come off as absurd and callous. Readers would feel inclined to chastise her reprehensible behavior, because superficially, it truly is the way mothers most fear their daughters will act in their teens and twenties and even early thirties. Instead, Handler is witty and self-mocking enough to make you spend most of the book wondering how much of each story is true and how much she is over exaggerating for effect. This guessing game turns into the compounding “oh my god, no she didn’t!” reaction you experience when your girlfriend tells you about “what a wild weekend she had.” Except according to this book, Handler doesn’t have wild weekends; she has a wild life.Blume fans, don’t try this book unless you transitioned to at least the level of the Sweet Valley Twins series in later adolescence. Otherwise, you may suffer from painful finger-wagging and irrepressible groaning.Bridget Jones’s Diary fans, read on. And try Handler’s My Horizontal Life, too.Those in between…read at your own risk. If you believe you may harbor puritan strains deep in your heart, I will warn you that you may not find Handler’s humor funny. But if you have a repressed wild side, following Handler’s antics is one of the best ways to live vicariously.
Stand-up comedy is very difficult to translate into essay form, and obviously it helps to be a fan of the comedian first. Since I'm totally unfamiliar with Handler, that may account for how underwhelmed I am by her book. It seems most Goodreads reviewers loved this book in particular, and Chelsea Handler in general, but I agree with another one-star reviewer who said: "But without being let in on the charade, I found connecting with Handler throughout the book to be basically impossible." It's not that I'm offended by crass in the least, and I enjoy the entertainment value of Crazy People Theater. I just don't get what her shtick is. Being an older version of the mean, bitchy, shallow, self-absorbed high-school girl we all loved to hate? A young, blond, female Archie Bunker? A wanna-be Kathy Griffin (whom I do find hilarious)? Into shock value alone for it's own sake? Whatever it is, maybe a blurb here and there on a stand-up show would result in a laugh, but in book form there's just not enough here to sustain a whole chapter, much less an entire collection of chapters. (I did finish the whole thing to give it a fair shot since it's a pick for one of my book clubs.)Handler also relies on the classic My Crazy Family topic, but again, I can think of many others who make far better use of this common source of comedy. Christopher Titus' "Norman Rockwell is Bleeding" and Brett Butler's "The Child Ain't Right" are two of my top five favorite comedy routines ever, and in this book Handler doesn't even come close.As for the writing itself, I didn't find it to be witty, subtly complex, gifted, fresh, or any of the other adjectives used by publishers and other reviewers. I think comedic writing of this style is very hard to do well, and this collection simply can't hold a candle to others like Jill Connor Browne's first Sweet Potato Queen book. Browne totally brings on the sass and crass, but does so in a way that is far more subtly sophisticated. Her common turns of phrase, the organization of the chapters, and the occasional poignant bit timed just right add depth to Browne's southern-fried-drunken-hilarity and far outshines Handler's randomly organized shallow-mean-girl thing.One thing I do like: the title. Gotta love the play on Judy Blume, and anyone who grew up with her books will appreciate it.
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What was I thinking when I put this book on my list of audios that I wanted my audioflix service to send me? Oh well, give it a try, I thought, as I slid the first disk into the proper slot in the minivan. Well, I'm glad that I still have my lightening reflexes and battle tested driving skills because I was careening down the interstate laughing out loud at this book while going 80 miles per hour (and you thought that driving while talking on the telephone was dangerous). Chelsea Handler picks stories from her family, relationships, childhood, and career for this group of hysterical essays. The best part was that she read this book so I didn't even have to imagine hearing the stories in her voice. Now a word of caution: if you have never seen her television show, Chelsea Handler Lately, on the Comedy Channel, please watch it a time a or two before reading or listening to this book. On a scale of 1 to 10, she can hit a 12 on language and references to sex, drinking, and recreational drugs. But, apparently, this didn't faze a woman of my quality. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to risk reading My Horizontal Life--a series of essays about her one-night stands in her youth. Doesn't she know that we are still trying to pretend to our parents that our one-night stands never happened? But, if you like ribald humor, and I do, I recommend this book to you. Except Hope, please don't read this. I have WAY too much respect for you to subject you to this book. It's bad enough that you have to put up with me on a daily basis. Oh, and Leslie, don't read this. I can just see you getting that look on your face that I so enjoy when I speak or act inappropriately.
—Judy
Cutting edge, funny sexy stories. Having seen Chelsea doing stand up and on Girls Behaving Badly, I was anxious to see how her wicked sarcastic wit would translate into text. It's fantastic! A seriously gifted writer, who combines funny and raunchy better than any woman.I mean wild, hilarious and uninhibited story telling. And it's not just the sheer ridiculous situations she encounters. She reflects about her mindless journeys and the meaning of life in such an amusing, self-deprecating cynical manner. It’s filled with funny anecdotes. She just has that trashy comedienne's gift of saying everything we think about but are afraid to say. And she manages to share absolutely horrifying situations and somehow make them hysterical!There are some hilarious and uncomfortable family situations. Her father was quite the provider of wisdom, selling used junkyard cars out of their front yard, while making inappropriate sexual innuendos towards his daughters. She shares some really funny embarrassing youth debacles and misadventures, and of course her bizarre sexual encounters with some serious screw ups. My favorite of Chelsea's embarrassing re-collections: her preposterous fake celebrity elementary school tale, a LOL birthday party for a friendless girl full of re-gifting, pretending to be honeymooning with her father in order to upgrade to first class. The Mini-Me and Prison Break chapters are just classics. Frankly if she wasn't successful, she may have ended up a basket case. If you are sensitive or quick to take offense, I would pass on this one. If you have a repressed wild side, you'll dive in headfirst and relish her antics and live vicariously through them. Also, if you like reading funny out of control drinking and sex stories, I'm half-way through Chelsea's other book ...My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands and it's great. I also recommend reading the guy’s version of this book. Wild steamy Penthouse stories, VIP partying, and it's even funnier than Chelsea's stuff. High Heels and Dirty Deals - Globetrotting Tales of Debauchery from a Binge-drinking Nymphomaniac
—Monique
So funny. Here's a sample:"I rolled over and picked up Us Weekly magazine off the floor. The cover had a picture of Angelina, Brad, and their little Eskimo son, Maddox. I saw staring at the photo, wondering why this little boy looks so pissed off in every picture.At first I thought he was just pissed about his Mohawk, but then I realized he’s probably furious. Maddox must have thought he hit the jackpot when some A-list celebrity rescued him from third-world Cambodia, only to discover that she was going to shuffle him back and for the to EVERY other third-world country in the universe. He’s probably like, “When the fuck are we gonna get to Malibu, bitch?” (pg. 96)
—suzy
