You’ll Grow Out of It

You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein

Adult – Nonfiction

Published July 12th 2016 by Grand Central Publishing

 

 

 

So this is how I will be starting out the new year. All proud of myself for setting a blogging schedule and some actual drive to follow through it…then scrambling last minute for a review and realizing this baby has been sitting in my drafts for roughly 2 months. I’m obviously incredibly organized and no amount of new years will probably ever change that.

I’m going to admit I didn’t really know much about Jessi Klein before picking up her book. She’s the head writer for Inside Amy Schumer…and that’s really where my knowledge ended. Her book was recommended one day on npr and I figured I would give it a shot. Not my favorite celebrity memoir by any means but it is one I’m glad I read.

So summary…It’s a memoir…boom, done. Or, at least, that’s how it felt to me at times.

“As both a tomboy and a late bloomer, comedian Jessi Klein grew up feeling more like an outsider than a participant in the rites of modern femininity. In YOU’LL GROW OUT OF IT, Klein offers – through an incisive collection of real-life stories – a relentlessly funny yet poignant take on a variety of topics she has experienced along her strange journey to womanhood and beyond. These include her ‘transformation from Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to are-you-a-lesbian-or-what tom man,’ attempting to find watchable porn, and identifying the difference between being called ‘ma’am’ and ‘miss’ (‘Miss’ sounds like you weigh ninety-nine pounds).” – (Source)

 

Thoughts

As with most books that are more a collection of stories than anything else, some moments I loved and others were meh. The parts that resonated more deeply with me were her stories about her awkwardness in childhood and how that shaped her awkward teenage and young adult self, who maybe didn’t see you can be weird and awkward in some aspects of life and extremely confident in others until later into adulthood. I loved that and could relate to it and laugh along with her and I think that’s her talent truly showed in this book. I could laugh along with her and remember what it was like to be extremely awkward. As she puts it,

“There are two kinds of women in this world: wolves and poodles. Poodles are those women who are always effortlessly feminine, who exude sunshine from their bronzed, opaque skin and rosy fragrance as if they are potpourri sachets. That woman in your office whose gauzy blouse is still completely unwrinkled at 4:55? Poodle.

Then, there are the rest of us—the wolves. As Klein puts it, “Wolves sweat a lot.” It’s not that wolves can’t be pretty, it’s just that it takes a lot of elbow grease to create a good look.”

This is definitely a collection of stories for fellow wolves.

Some of the later stories are where I began to waver. Her path to marriage and baby with her partner were certainly real and necessary stories, I could just never laugh along with her. A lot of it came off as semi-whiny about this great man who won’t commit because “boys.” For me it was harder to want to keep reading because by that point I had just checked out. Klein used witty commentary and self-deprecating humor to connect to the reader through shared emotions and in those later stories I just couldn’t connect.

 

Quotes

“This is why Virginia Woolf stressed the importance of having a room of one’s own. If you don’t fight for it, don’t insist on it, and don’t sacrifice for it, you might end up in that increasingly tepid water, pruning and sweating while dreaming of other things.”

 

ReRead?

Probably not, but I would l recommend it to anyone looking at one comedian’s entertaining view of womanhood through personal experience.