Title: Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life
Author: Ali Wong
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Comedy, Feminism, Memoirs
Pace: Fast
Format: eBook, Novel
Year: 2019
I’ve seen a few of Ali Wong’s Netflix features, and I wasn’t sure how her wit and humour would translate to her writing. It turns out that she is just as hilarious with the written word as the spoken. Something about her had me in hysterics from the very first page. Honestly, the woman is just as filthy, ridiculous and hilarious in writing as she is on TV. And I absolutely was here for each and every moment of its insanity.
I absolutely adore how brutally honest Wong is about life, love and the plain old challenges of being a woman. She talks about how brutal motherhood is, the ridiculousness of childbirth and how insane it is to be a strong woman in a man’s world. All with her healthy dose of humour, wit and sarcasm. I honestly couldn’t stop laughing whilst reading this. It was honestly hilarious, and definitely not sane. My kind of woman, honestly.
As much as I enjoyed just the chaos of Wong’s writing, I found it especially funny that each and every “chapter” in this book is actually a themed letter to her daughters. Which felt kind of unhinged considering some of the topics of these letters. I may not get the chance to ever be that blunt with my own children, but I really appreciated how Wong approached this. It also tied in very nicely to the fact that every word in this reeked of her love for her children.
A lot of the commentary in Dear Girls was great – but I felt particularly connected to her discussions around motherhood. I have young children myself, and her brutal honesty as to how ridiculous and difficult being a mother is was… brilliant. We need more people with this level of honesty in the media – motherhood is amazing, but it is hard and no joke. Her honesty around this and ability to be up front and frank about the challenges we face as mothers… something that I need more of in my shelves.
