MK

Mindy Kaling has beauty, brains and smashing success. Now, join us on our mission to find her Mr. Right and make the rom-com happy ending of her dreams come true!

She's Just A Girl, Standing In Front of a Boy, Asking Him To Love Her...

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Why Not Me? Book Profiling - Acknowledgments

As I mentioned in my review of Why Not Me?, I wanted to dissect the book further in additional blog posts.

It's easy to overlook the Acknowledgments section, overshadowed by the wit and affability with which the actual chapters of the book are so carefully crafted. But to me, it is the most revealing section of the book and therefore, perhaps even my favorite. It was the place I first turned to when I got Mindy's book in my hands (which says something about me - freak), and what a story it tells.


Including also the Dedication to Mindy's Mother



Mindians won't miss the lack of mentions, especially when compared to the acknowledgments in her first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - see below:





Now, I don't imagine every person who had been acknowledged previously and not mentioned in the second book's acknowledgments has bad blood with Mindy. Some of these people may simply have had involvement with the first book and not with the second. Mindy and Lena Dunham still seem to be friends.

Other missing shout-outs are more jarring, including:

Mindy's brother, Vijay - that's sad. Obviously, Mindy couldn't have loved her brother's whole Indian-face fiasco. In fact, it was reported that her rep stated at the time of the embarrassing media coverage: "Mindy has been estranged from her brother for years. She was not aware of his decision to apply to medical school under a different name and race.

I still wish these siblings would reconcile. I think they may have already been on their way to making up had their Mom been around to force the issue like moms usually do. 

Mindy, think about making up with your crazy brother - he's still your family. We won't judge you for his antics. 

Other former "dearest":
Brenda Withers (I called it) and Christina Hoe - an examination of this deserves its own post.

David Harris: 
Obviously, the ex-boyfriend wouldn't get a mention. While the current version of her first book doesn't include it (as you can see from the images above), a google book search reveals, that at one time in the first edition, David Harris had been acknowledged (as you can see from the image below). 

It seems that other references to her ex David have also been removed from the current version of Is Everyone Hanging Out With Me? Too bad I can't read the rest of this page:


Danny Chun: 
I'd guess that things aren't all good between these two former writing mates. The most telling indication of this is Mindy doesn't seem to have once mentioned or plugged Danny's new show, Grandfathered, on her social media. Interestingly, Grandfathered airs on the FOX network, which coldly dropped The Mindy Project - so perhaps this isn't a Danny snub but a FOX one instead?

Jack Burditt: 
While Jack wasn't in Mindy's first book, he was an Executive Producer and writer for The Mindy Project, and he's noticeably missing among the Why Not Me? mentions of Mindy's other writers on the show. I also noticed Jack seems to have moved on to working on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. If I had to guess, I'd say the fall-out - if there was one - was fairly recent, like sometime this summer when The Mindy Project was gearing up for Season 4 on Hulu. Perhaps, Jack's exit from the team was less than smooth? Maybe, everything's fine and I should stop reading into nothing in Acknowledgments?!

P.S. Mindy loves carrot cake. This was not deduced from profiling her book but from other sources.


                                                                                                                                           

2 comments: