Description

Rating: ****

Tags: General, Interpersonal relations, Family & Relationships, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Humor, Psychology, Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Man-Woman Relationships, Non-fiction:Humor, Relationships, Form, Sex, Form - Essays, Entertainment & Performing Arts - General, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Topic, Human Sexuality, Essays, Lang:en

Summary

In My Horizontal Life, actress and stand-up comedian Chelsea Handler boldly recounted her one-night stands-the good, the bad, and the disastrous. In this wickedly honest new work, she casts the net wider with even funnier results, recalling the most noteworthy highs and lows of her life to date--including her efforts to diversify by dating red-haired men, her obsession with midgets, and the dog-sitting interlude in which her boyfriend became overly familiar with a Peekapoo.

Whether it's a vacation with her dad during which he tells airline staff they're a honeymoon couple in order to get an upgrade, or her elaborate attempts to convince her third-grade classmates that she's starring in a Private Benjamin sequel, Chelsea lets it rip in these relentlessly entertaining essays. Displaying the candor and irresistible turn of phrase that have earned her a recurring stint as a correspondent on The Tonight Show as well as her own E! series, Chelsea Lately, this deliciously skewed collection is a guilty pleasure.

From Publishers Weekly

Handler proves the adage that just because one can, doesn't mean one should. This applies to both her role as a writer and a narrator. In this disjointed collection of memories and experiences, even her overenthusiastic voice cannot compensate for the irrelevance and frivolousness that is this book. Her anecdotes cover a range of topics from sex to sibling rivalry to parental humiliation, all showcasing how smart and witty she can be-in hindsight. Whether rambling about how she's freaked out by red-headed men or bemoaning her arrest and short stint in prison, her attempts to be funny fall flat and her valley-girl persona wears quickly on listeners. Her lively voice has the potential to do well with audiobooks, but the overall tone and ecstatic energy she emits only emphasizes the inconsequential prose. Listeners might find themselves asking for Vodka to help reach the end of this production. A Simon & Schuster hardcover.
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Review

"Chelsea Handler writes like Judy Blume, if Judy Blume were into vodka, Ecstasy, and sleeping with midgets and nineteen-year-olds."

-- Jennifer Weiner, bestselling author of In Her Shoes"Ms. Handler's style is a friendlier, more workaday version of the haughty self-abasement practiced by Sarah Silverman, leavened by the everywoman spirit of Kathy Griffin...She seems like a cruel queen bee from an expensive college: There's something suspiciously sophisticated about how her jokes line up that suggests the moral austerity of a comic not of [Joan] Rivers's bad-girl school: Tina Fey."

-- New York Times"Where have I been all of Chelsea Handler's life? I had no idea how funny, how brilliant she is. She is too clever for words."

-- Liz Smith, New York Post"Chelsea Handler is a terrific comedian and a hilarious writer."

--Jay Leno