As Kelly Kapoor on The Office, Mindy Kaling is a perpetual teenager obsessed with shopping, boys and reality TV. The real Kaling is a supremely self-aware version of Kelly, one who knows what’s frivolous—she would 
never put up with Ryan’s bullshit—
but is unabashed in her love for it. She’s cultivated a voice and it is deployed perfectly here, conversational and peppered with hilarious one-liners. But unlike Tina Fey’s Bossypants, the book it’s most often compared to (there is a paragraph devoted to that comparison’s inevitability), there are no stakes—a studious child of successful immigrants goes to Ivy League college, hits Off-Broadway then lands job on The Office by age 24. It’s a quick, fun read, perfect for a plane ride or Sunday afternoon. You won’t think of it when you’re not touching it, but Kaling would be totally fine with that.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.
