My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me: And Other Stories I Shouldn't Share with Acquaintances, Coworkers, Taxi drivers, Assistants, Job Interviewers, Bikini Waxers, and Ex/Current/Future Boyfriends but Have

By Hilary Winston

TV writer Hilary Winston offers up a witty collection of autobiographical tales about her misadventures in dating.
Just when Hilary feels like her life is finally in order, she gets a sucker-punch to the gut: Her ex has written a novel based on their relationship in which he refers to her throughout as the “fat-assed girlfriend.” Her response to this affront is just one of the many hilarious stories in My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me--a laugh-out-loud, tell-all in which Hilary sets the record straight on all her exes.   Hilary Winston was writer and producer of the critically acclaimed comedy Community and was one of the writers for the Emmy®-award-winning show My Name Is Earl. She  is the creator of a new comedy that will air on CBS in early 2014, Bad Teacher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sterling
• Release date: May 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781402788826

Book preview

MY BOYFRIEND

WROTE A BOOK

ABOUT ME

AND OTHER STORIES I SHOULDN’T SHARE WITH ACQUAINTANCES,

COWORKERS, TAXI DRIVERS, ASSISTANTS, JOB INTERVIEWERS,

BIKINI WAXERS, AND EX/CURRENT/FUTURE BOYFRIENDS BUT HAVE

Hilary Winston

An Imprint of Sterling Publishing

387 Park Avenue South

New York, NY 10016

STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

© 2011 by Hilary Winston

All rights reserved

Sterling ISBN 978-1-4027-7979-4

Sterling eBook ISBN: 978-1-4027-8882-6

For information about custom editions, special sales, premium and

corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales

Department at 800-805-5489 or [e-mail].

This book is dedicated to my favorite cats (you know who

you are) and anyone who has ever had their heart broken.

And dreamed of getting just the tiniest slice of revenge.

And didn’t do it because they were worried they’d look crazy.

I’m taking this bullet for you.

You’re welcome.

CONTENTS

Preface

Part 1: My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me

The story of how I found out that my former boyfriend wrote a book about me and

what I decided to do about it, other than writing bad reviews on Amazon.com.

I Am the Fat-assed Girlfriend

Part 2: The Foundation Is Cracked

Introducing all the jerks, dicks, and gay guys

I dated before my first real relationship.

It All Started With a Garbage Pail Kid

Truly Tasteless Jokes, or How I Learned about Sex

I Know You’re in There, Whore!

Hey, Baby, Let Me See Your Tattoo!

The Case of the Really Tight H.J.

He Didn’t Even Look at Me Twice

Austin Powers, Jr.

My Gay Ex-boyfriends

Shy Pooper

Part 3: Bathing in Tandem AKA

My First Adult Relationship

Detailed accounts of my first and last major relationship

and its downfall, before he wrote a book about me.

My First Adult Relationship

The Coital Laugh

Have You Been Fighting in Front of the Cat?

A Questionable Poo: The End of Romance

Witches Boarding School: My Sexual Fantasy

The Saddest Bath

My Landing Strip Is Stuck to You

Part 4: No More Baths (Well, Maybe a Few More)

This section will tell the stories from my acting out phase.

This will be the section that will most embarrass my family

members and possibly even my friends and neighbors.

A Real, Genuine, 100-percent Bona Fide Christmas Miracle

Delta Employee Versus A Heartbroken Emotional Eater

Coworker Phone Sex

What Do You Think of My Boobies?

The Pre-famous Dude

Lolly’s Acne

The Accidental Hand Job

How a Lean Cuisine Spa Meal Ruined the Perfect Hook-up

The I-Can’t-Believe-I-Live-on-the-Beach Guy

The Texas Titty Twister

Whore Bath

Birthday Bath With a Stranger

What’s Up With All the Baths?

Part 5: Terrible, Horrible, No Good,

Very Bad Things, and One Crazy-ass Mailman

The truth hurts and these essays are achingly true. They include my

mother’s breast cancer, me putting my cat into a diabetic coma on my

birthday (sorry, Emmett), and other things that attract male companions.

Mom’s Cancer, My Dying Cat, and Other Good First Date Topics

Gary, My Crazy-ass Horny Mailman

You Don’t Believe in Love

Single People Are Not Welcome at Build-A-Bear

Past Life Regression Therapy

eRejection: My Foray into Online Dating

Part 6: Where Do Broken Vaginas Go?

Do They Find Their Way Home?

Every good book or fight has a wrap up. This chapter is about

how I mended my heart and broke my vagina, literally.

My Broken Vagina

An Un-spiritual Awakening on Parking Level 4

The Last Supper, Olive Garden Style

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

A NOTE TO THE READER

This book is painfully true. The stories are told the way I remember them happening and reflect my personal opinion on people, events, and ultimately the truth. Some details have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty. But the only person I really intended to make fun of at all in this book is myself and maybe my diabetic cat. If you are one of the guys I dated and are written about in here, I’m sorry. But we had fun . . . yes? Maybe. And c’mon, you probably broke up with me.

PREFACE

Alittle background before we go any further together, I am a lady.

I was born in Los Angeles, California, to a government lawyer and a swimwear designer. I have a therapist sister, Christine, who is four years older and according to my mother, much, much smarter than me. She took an IQ test in elementary school that revealed she was a genius. I was given no such test but I guess my parents figured the chances of birthing two geniuses were slim. That’s how I became the dumber sister. We moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1980 so my Dad could work in the family auto parts business and I could develop a slight Texan accent.

After paying four years tuition at The George Washington University (go Colonials), my parents encouraged/begged/blackmailed me to become a lawyer and make all their dreams come true. This didn’t come out of nowhere, I had encouraged it. I went to college hoping to become the first female Republican President, even skipped my junior year of high school to get a jump on the other aspiring lady elephants. Upon arriving in Washington, D.C., I joined the Collegiate Conservatives. After an awkward BBQ with a bunch of pale Republicans in khaki shorts quoting Rush Limbaugh, I almost immediately lost faith in my conservative roots, and went 180 degrees in the other direction. I ended up an intern in the West Wing of the White House for Bill Clinton, just in time for that job description to become a national punch line.

To add to my further moral decline, I joined our college comedy group, Recess. We performed improv and sketch like it was our job and in writing those sketches my love for comedy was born. It’s like a ghost. Once you see it, you can’t deny its existence. Once I found comedy, I couldn’t deny it was what I wanted to do. By the time I graduated college with a degree in International Affairs, and affairs with guys who didn’t really like me back, I’d swung completely to the left and was working as an assistant at NPR. My parents might refer to this time as the beginning of the end. It’s also when I got cats.

When I told my parents I wanted to be a writer, they said no. They were my primary investors after all. I don’t think they wanted to squash my dreams. I just don’t think they pictured their little pumpkin writing fart and poo jokes for a living. At least I was a lawyer on my high school Mock Trial team that won state. I did make the Dallas newspaper, so they’ve got that.

I know my career choice disappointed my parents even though for all intents and purposes, I’ve made it. I’ve been writing television sitcoms professionally (kind of an oxymoron) for almost eight years. I know my parents are proud of me although sometimes they deflect having to admit this by saying, You must be so proud of yourself. Point being, they have come to appreciate my job on some level but I’m about to disappoint them again by doing something very un-Southern: air my dirty laundry. I’m thirty-four years old and I have stories I feel the need to tell, including one about the death of a relationship and its resurrection in the New Fiction section at Barnes & Noble. In fact, that story is the inspiration for telling them all.

My stories aren’t Lifetime Movie Network material. I was not kidnapped and fed ground meat as a child. I did not overcome a terrible illness and go on to find a cure for Restless Leg Syndrome in a dwindling rainforest. I did not adopt a deaf child (though I almost adopted a blind kitten . . . almost, too needy). And I did not donate my eggs or re-virginize myself in front of Congress.

But things happen. Life happens. Over the course of a few years, I fell in love. I fell out of love. My sex robot obsessed significant other decided to cryogenically freeze himself. My mom got cancer and bragged about the weight she lost. My cat got diabetes. I gave an accidental hand job. I broke my vagina, literally. I bought a house. I had a questionable poo. I got all my private’s hair waxed off. I ate Tylenol PM and Lean Cuisine for dinner. And just when I thought my Job-like phase was coming to an end, my ex-boyfriend wrote a book about me.

My ex-boyfriend didn’t get our story right. And I’ve had quite a few interesting stories since then. So what’s a good Texas girl turned comedy writer to do, but write a tell-all book of essays to set the record straight for all my exes. So, here you go: the best of/worst of version of my life.

PART 1

MY

BOYFRIEND

WROTE

A BOOK

ABOUT ME

I AM THE FAT-ASSED GIRLFRIEND

It’s a weekday in sunny Los Angeles and I want to rip his dick off. I’m in the Barnes & Noble at The Grove, an outdoor shopping center in the middle of Hollywood that has a large, well-groomed, unnatural park at the heart of it with a small imitation Bellagio fountain. Imitation being used extremely loosely. At Christmastime it snows bubbles, to the delight of L.A. shoppers hungry for changing seasons. People bring their families and strollers on the weekends. The masterminds behind The Grove, which is largely shaped like a maze or trap with very few exits, try to make you feel like you’re somewhere special, an enclave in the bustling sea of urban disappointment, but no matter what it snows, it’s just a damn mall.

It’s a beautiful day. It’s the kind of day a kid paints with their watercolors—big yellow sun, fluffy white clouds, and an unrealistic bright blue sky. There aren’t many windows in the bookstore. It’s the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week and the bookstore is packed. I don’t know why it’s always so packed. It’s just a bookstore. Libraries aren’t this packed and they have the same thing. For free! There are so many tourists, which blows my mind. If you are a tourist in L.A. why are you at Barnes & Noble? I’m sure it’s the same as every other Barnes & Noble.

For whatever reason, people are here strolling down the aisles judging the books by their covers. And the same people judging the books are also judging the people hunched over reading those books, spilling coffee and biscotti crumbs all over The Lovely Bones which they don’t intend to purchase but will enjoy for now. It’s calm and everyone is library quiet. But I don’t want to be quiet. I want to scream and cry and stab my fucking heart out with their chocolate-dipped biscotti but that’s not okay to do in the middle of Barnes & Noble on a weekday. Possibly a weekend when there is more noise, but not now, not in a half-full, three-tiered store with amazing acoustics. I’ll be thrown out; I’ll be dragged out. I’ll fight and yell and bite the security guard because I don’t feel like I can be anything but insane at this moment. And it’s all my fault.

I wasn’t even near it. I was in the travel section buying books on Turkey, where I’m going with my platonic best friend Len. We’re going to share a bed and incredible life experiences because I have a life. I’ve moved on. I know things about wine, red AND white. I buy The Economist when I fly and sometimes even read it. I have dinner parties or at least have had one. And despite all that, it pulls me in, like a conversation about ex-girlfriends. You know it isn’t going to be good but you just can’t resist. I can’t see anything else in the store. In this store full of so many books, so many better reviewed books, I can only see his. His name. The name I used to scribble on yellow legal pads, adding Mrs. to the front of it like a fourth-grade girl on the back of a school bus. The name I thought would be on my wedding invitations and monogrammed stationary, towels, and party napkins. The name I thought I would give to my kids. But instead, his name is on this book and on someone else’s legal pad. And I can’t breathe.

Kyle and I met at an Ivy League Drinks Mixer at the Liquid Kitty, a dark martini bar, in 2000. Martinis and cigars were the in things at the moment, but I didn’t partake in either. I was twenty-three years old, and didn’t have much in the way of long-term relationship experience or real life experience.

Neither of us went to Ivy League schools but some of our friends did. I always wanted to date an Ivy League guy, maybe because I had a complex about not attending one. I would’ve tried harder to get in but I didn’t realize what a big deal it was.

A jerk guy (Dartmouth) bumped into me. Classic move. I was avoiding talking to the jerk guy (who had a lot of questions but wasn’t interested in the answers) and ended up talking to his friend, Kyle. Kyle was on the short side and had fine blonde hair that struggled to cover his forehead, blue eyes, freckles, and pale skin. You could tell he worked out, maybe too much for my taste. I found out we were both from Texas. I smiled. He smiled. I wore my hair pulled tightly back into a librarian bun, a wreck of blonde highlights at the time and pants I looked fat in. Girls with sizeable behinds should not wear Capri pants no matter how fashionable they are. This is a trap I have fallen into more than once. I am publicly apologizing now.

I wrote my number down for Kyle on my boss’s business card (I was an assistant to a TV producer and didn’t even have my own cards) and wrote underneath it Texan Girl. In my head I guess I was worried if he got another girl’s phone number he would get us confused. That’s before I really knew Kyle. He wasn’t one to hit on girls. He’s self-admittedly scared of girls. We happened by accident. I know he still has this Texan Girl card. And though California is now our home we’re both still Texans at heart. I like dating Texans. Texans have this weird love of the state but since we made the choice to leave it, we know it’s not perfect. Kyle called me a few days after we met. He sounded like he was on the verge of laughing.

Hey, this is Kyle. We met at the Liquid Kitty.

I was excited and covered it with the driest tone I could muster, I remember. My tone clearly caused Kyle to lose whatever confidence he had going into the call, So, do you want to get a drink sometime?

I gasped audibly then said, What? I’m not good enough for dinner?

Oh, the confidence of youth. Kyle picked me up at my shitty dilapidated apartment which was crammed at the bottom of the Hollywood Hills for our first date. The apartment complex had been a crack house seemingly months before I moved in. My front door had crowbar marks and the inside had roaches. I didn’t pick it, one of my gay ex-boyfriends did.

The first week I moved in I was at the manager’s apartment giving him a check when another tenant stormed in yelling in very formal English, enunciating every word clearly, something very close to the following, "Sir, I think you should know that I have just telephoned the police. Because my roommate has locked himself in the bathroom with a bunch of my cocaine and a hooker . . . again."

My upstairs neighbor was a speed freak who used to always borrow toilet paper from me at ridiculous hours and repaid me in donuts. It was just like the ad said, Charming 1 Br in Hllwd Hlls with view. The view was of a neon motel sign (The Falcon) unless you stood on the bed and then you could see the Hollywood Hills. The previous owner had a dog and it smelled like dog pee. The manager’s response to my complaint was, Wait. You know what it really smells like? That stuff you clean dog pee with. Charming was right.

At that time the neighborhood was too dangerous to walk in, but sometimes I would drive to 7-11, not far from Pla-boy Liquor another choice spot where I once saw two homeless people huddled over a box next to the parking lot. Upon closer inspection of what they were hunched over, I saw that it was a giant sheet cake that said, Congratulations on your 100th episode. Welcome to Hollywood. Irony like this was as common as lavandarias. A local stop for actors seeking headshots was next to the anonymous needle exchange. But after a few years, posh nightclubs replaced strip clubs, the Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars are held) replaced 3 for $10 T-shirt shops, and Starbuck’s replaced donut/Chinese food shops. And quickly the neighborhood lost all its charm.

Kyle ventured into my sub-par neighborhood from his Westside one. Westside living was a little easier. The biggest problem was street cleaning. Kyle arrived for our first date on time but waited at the wrong side of my building for 15 minutes. It was a side door, not the front entrance. I was annoyed he was late. He was annoyed I was late. It was our first but certainly not our last fight. He made a joke about me living on the corner

Reviews for My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me

[howifeelaboutbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was really funny, but above that, it was honest. Most stories focus on relationships, but Hilary also shares random personal stories, like shopping at Build-a-Bear alone and working her way up the writing ladder in Hollywood. It's admirable that Hilary actually put her personal life on the line to write this. Most of the things she mentioned, I wouldn't even want to admit had happened to me - but she does so with humor and honesty. Highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a laugh, regardless of whether they love or hate relationships.

[ijustgetbored · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Winston's book is a tell-all-- and I do mean a tell-all, but the sub-title of the book (". . . and Other Stories I Shouldn't Share with Acquaintances, Co-Workers, Taxi Drivers, Assistants, Job Interviewers, Bikini Waxers, and Ex/Current/Future Boyfriends but Have") should definitely tip you off to that fact. If abundant sharing is not your thing, this is not your book. If, like me, it doesn't bother you, then dig in. One of the selling points of this book could be, in fact, a sense that you can identify with what she's talking about because she doesn't hold anything back or get hung up on the niceties. This is life as life is lived, uncensored, and you feel all the closer to Winston because this is how she's chosen to present it. It also makes her a more vunerable narrator, not a screeching harridan hell-bent on revenge for the titular boyfriend who wrote a book about his "fat-assed" ex-girlfriend: her.The book is divided into six parts. Of those six parts, the first four basically center on the theme of relationships, including the one of the title. The last two kind of veer off into other territories; I knocked the book's overall star rating down a bit because these last two parts, while still containing quality material, seemed more scattershot and less tied into a central theme. It's like she wrote the first four parts, then needed to take up some more space in her book, so filled the last two parts with all the other essays she wanted to write but couldn't topically tie into the the first four parts. So the last segment of the book seems a little disjointed, which is a bit jarring. As I said, the material itself isn't the problem; it's the problem of fitting into an overarching theme for the book that seems to be an issue here.Winston's writing, while funny, is not what you'd call (literally) laugh-out-loud hilarious. There were plenty of times I was smiling, but only during one essay-- "Single People Are Not Welcome at Build-A-Bear"-- did I find myself actually laughing out loud and reading bits of it to someone else. It's kind of hard to quantify a level of "funniness" when writing a review of a book. For me, a truly hilarous book has me chortling and disturbing other by constantly interrupting their reading with my readings from my book. A book that's amusing, but not in a way that will have me remembering particular lines from it later, will have me smiling quietly to myself. A lot of the humor derived, as I mentioned before, from the "been there, done that" sense that Winston conveys. Some of the essays, particularly in those final two parts of the book, tended a bit toward the melancholy, disrupting the casual rapport she'd previously established with the reader. It's just plain going to be hard for anyone to make cancer and dying cats amusing to me.One thing I really admired about Winston was that she had here an opportunity to write a book that would be a vindictive attack on her ex-boyfriend who, as the title states, wrote a rather nasty book (fictionalized) about her. Rather than doing that, she remembers their relationship for the good and the bad, recognizing faults in both parties. She's really very fair in her assessment of the whole thing. There were plenty of openings for her to be mean and to caricture him, make cheap jokes at his expense, but she doesn't sink to do that. She's all the more likeable because of that; there's no mean spirit here.So, overall: A solid entry. Funny, but not overwhelmingly hilarious. Solid most of the way through as to a theme, then veers off course a little toward the end. For the "not overwhelmingly hilarious" and the meandering, I'm knocking off a half-star. I would read Winston again, though. I like her too much to dump her-- unlike her ex-boyfriend.

[daumari · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not terrible but not the greatest thing either. I enjoyed it, though.

[britbrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hilary Winston, writer for the TV hit "Community" and the defunct (but hysterical) "My Name is Earl" found herself in a bookstore one day, faced with the newly published book of the ex-boyfriend (Note: She refers to him as "Kyle", but it's misogynistic author Chad Kultgen) she'd loved and lived with for years. She opened it up to see that he'd taken their relationship, given them fake names, and slapped a fiction label on it. Not on that, but he'd referred to her as his "fat ass girlfriend," and gone on to pontificate on how much he disliked her. It turns out that this was the slap in the face that finally helped her put the last nail in the coffin of that relationship and move on. Part of the process of moving on was the writing of this book, in which she takes her ex-boyfriend to task and tells more funny (if sometimes disturbing) vignettes about her life.How often does a book make you laugh, cry, cringe, and make you want to run out in the street and press it into the hands of every woman you see? Not often. You should read this book if: you've ever been betrayed by a man who you loved...you've had multiple boyfriends turn out to be gay...your longest relationship you've had with a man is with your tomcat...you enjoyed the movie "Bridemaids" and would like to read about a woman who would fit right into that wedding party.I'll admit, part of the reason I adored this book so much was that I could identify with the author. I've had some pretty rotten relationships, and I've behaved in a similar fashion. But I think that most women would be able to find some part of Ms. Winston's experience which sounds familiar. All in all, it's a heartfelt journey of a women looking for love who starts to find love within herself. And it's shelved in non-fiction.

[sugarpeach_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book should have a too much info warning in its beginning. Winston did not spare blushes in this candidly written book about her boyfriends. If I were any of her boyfriends, I would be squirming in my seat.Winston pokes fun at all the heartbreaking and hilarious relationships she has been in. She describes her ex-boyfriends in telling details. More often than not, they are placed in a negative light and it seemed as if she thought that there could be no perfection in her any of her exes. It was a relief to read her self-examination at the end of her book. She keeps herself grounded by admitting that she has character weaknesses too.The more pages I turned in the book, the more I wondered if Winston had used hyperboles. Characters in the book frequently had dramatic reactions to incidents. Either they were very colorful people or their reactions were exaggerated.This book is a collection of very personal of stories. Right from page 1, Winston practiced the no holds barred attitude. I was amazed at the way she doesn’t shy from being brutally honest when narrating her stories. It takes plenty of guts to publish such an intimate, telling book.The ending of the book leaves something to be desired. Winston still hasn’t fully gotten over her relationship with Kyle. Perhaps, there is a sequel in works? If there is a sequel, I will definitely want to read it. The thing I enjoyed most is Winston's writing style. She writes in a casual and humorous style. She is frank and expresses her emotions well in the book.My Boyfriend Wrote A Book About Me was a hilarious collection of stories about the ups and downs of Winston’s relationship life. Its openness left me a little uncomfortable sometimes, but hey, this book is about real incidents in a real person’s life.As for who “Kyle” is, read this book and then do a spot of Googling!

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I requested this book through the Early Reviewers program because it looked like something I would enjoy. It was a memoir and it was supposed to be funny. Unfortunately, it wasn't what I thought it would be. If you are a reader who enjoys delving into the sexual exploits of other people, this will be an amusing read. I kept waiting for Ms. Winston to explore any other aspects of her relationships - but it was all pretty much about sex. And she does so in ways that are more explicit than I am comfortable with. Philosophically, I have to disagree with the worldview of this book - there is more to a relationship than sex, and Ms. Winston doesn't make the case that sex leads to happiness - quite the opposite. For me, it was a disappointing read.

[tmyers526 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I got this book through Early reviewers, and I had really been looking forward to it. I was expecting something in the same vein as Sloane Crosley. Sadly, it just wasn't so. While there are some funny moments, and the very touching story at the end about her cat, I really did not need to know as much about her sex life as I learned in this book. I would, however, love to know who the infamous Kyle is, and to read his book.

[woodsathome · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hilary Winston was a young, comedic writer just beginning to find real success (My Name Is Earl, Community) when she picked a new piece of "fiction" her ex-live-in had written and found her life in those so-called fictional pages. Worse, her character was routinely referred to as "my fat-ass ex-girlfriend. So begins her own tale of neurotic,often toxic ex-relationships. Her writing style is frank, open and completely honest. Sometimes I think a little to open. I'm not the type to get offended by frank sexual discussions, though I think some readers might be. I just have to say - I was a little bored. I think she told me 3 or 4 times the aforementioned ex was really into 69, robot sex, and baths. When this type of detail is offered for every relationship it starts to feel a little juvenile. I don't know, it is probably just a difference in comedic sensibility (love Earl, am indifferent to Community). I just didn't find myself laughing - at all. I have the feeling it is meant to be humorous. I also have the feeling that a number of readers are likely to find the stories comedic gold. They fell flat for me. If you are a fan of Community and aren't bothered by frank sexuality, I'm sure you will enjoy this. For me, it was just OK.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hilary Winston was upset (among many other reasons) that her boyfriend's book was billed as fiction despite the fact that it was true, and truly about her. So she wrote this non-fiction book, which is excruciatingly true about her. I see she's sold it to Paramount, which is great for her - and a movie will give it some distance the book doesn't have. I say all this because it was very hard for me to read this book, and it's harder still to review - because of its excruciating truthfulness. I felt like a fly on the wall in her therapist's office, or like I'd broken into her diary. I admired her way with words, her ability to put the reader right smack dab in the middle of a scene (sex scenes, often), while at the same time feeling so, so sad for her. All the sex, all the hook-ups, all the searching for the next man to replace the last man, obscure the real feeling, perceptive person that she is, that comes through in my favorite chapter (the one that one reviewer thought was filler), the one about her mother with cancer and her dying cat. If, after the movie, she chooses to write another book, I can't wait to read it.

[erinobrien-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Winston writes a book that is certainly entertaining, if at times sharing a bit more than the reader needs to know, in my opinion. That said, Winston has a knack for perfectly summing up a situation and killing it with great one-liners; there were parts of this book where I literally laughed at loud reading them. The book strings together many unrelated (albeit hilarious) anecdotes and is really more of a collection of funny stories than a novel about a personal journey, as she tries to make it in the conclusion. If you want a quick, fun beach read and aren't easily offended, give this book a shot - it will keep you laughing.

[stephaniechase_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Winston is incredibly charming in real life -- I had the pleasure of hearing her speak at an author's breakfast -- and I looked forward to reading her memoir, which was put forward as equal parts revenge story and a growing-and-maturing history. While I found it a fast, easy read, I also found it to fall squarely in the "too much information" camp, and, as a librarian, I would find it difficult to recommend to patrons due to some of the subject matter discussed.

[mlake_22 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a very fast read. Parts of this book were funny and engaging and parts felt like I was reading Hilary's diary.

[bookwhisperer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Where do I begin with this book? I guess the beginning will suffice. My friend handed me this book and said, “You need to read this. I have laughed non-stop throughout the whole thing.” And she was right! Hilary dishes out the sad, the glad, the despicable, and the praises on all of her ex-boyfriends. She is completely honest (to a fault) in the book and she leaves out nothing. There were times when I was reading this that I thought, “I would never EVER tell anyone this. I could keep it a secret and lock it up really tight. So tight, that I wouldn’t even remember that it happened to me.” An example would be how she broke her vagina. I laughed so hard sometimes at her stories and then I cried so hard sometimes at the others. She writes about a life that I would honestly think could only happen in someone’s imagination; but she has lived it. I applaud Hilary for being so forthcoming in her honesty and her wit. ~BookWhisperer Reviewer MC~

[ownedbycats · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book! Hope Hilary writes more books, as I was sad to see this end.

[butrfli480 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I thought this book would be funnier than it was. It was very fragmented and it seemed to me like she would be talking about one thing and then that would set her off in a another completely unrelated direction. She also was a little heavy on the low self-esteem thing. She mentions it a little too much and the book reads like her personal therapy sessions. Not at all what I expected.

[abcarroll_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Winston writes candidly about her past relationships after discovering her ex-boyfriend has written a book about her. Winston is funny and refreshingly honest about her life and love, or lack thereof. A fun, humorous read...a great choice for a summer vacation. Warning: if you are easily offended or are not up for a share-all kind of book, this may not be for you, but if you are up for anything this may be the book for you!

[nkrivera · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While this book was very funny in parts, it often felt almost too intimate and was a little uncomfortable to read.

[bookwormteri · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fun. I can't really think of too much to say other than every woman can relate to this book. Whether we have been there or heard stories from our girlfriends about their awkward dating episodes, we can relate. One thing that I can say is I have always hung onto the idea that there is someone out there, and often have looked to my past and wondered if maybe I was too hasty. I haven't. And neither has Hilary, we tend to romanticize the past, but it wasn't all that great.Some of the stories are funny, some are poignant. Readable, but probably not all that different from the other memoirs out there.Also, what book did Kyle write? And who was the famous actor that she slept with who then exploded into fame? I am just curious....