A memoir from comedian in which she offers-through a collection of real-life stories-her take on a variety of topics she has experienced along her strange journey to womanhood and beyond.
[Klein] writes with a singularity so amusing and compelling that I feel the urge to connect her in my mind to other funny writers I’ve read ... Her witty, conversational prose is sharp-eyed and loud with a feminist emphasis that feels fresh ... Klein, in the manner of a well-trained therapy-advanced gen-x New York Jew, determinedly investigates her own vulnerabilities and reflections. Deep and scrutinizing, she twists her way through her psyche like she might endlessly twirl a lock of spitty hair.
You’ll Grow Out of It comes along to remind us just what an artful confessional essay can do ... These pieces often have a let-me-level-with-you directness reminiscent of [Nora] Ephron without being too imitative ... The jokiness, digressions, confessions and punctuation in lieu of words (!!!) are counterbalanced by thoughtful insights and genuine emotion ... This is a book about accepting one’s flaws, and it’s not without a few of them. The deeper the topic — heartbreak, marriage, career struggles — the more monotonous the telling...The other issue is that too many essays end on a note of pat summary.
...as she does in the 'tom man' essay and almost every other piece in the book, Klein ends a few sentences after arriving at the main point, leaving me with no answers to all the questions she just raised, only a new way to identify myself ... It's like the beginning of a beautiful all-day Gchat conversation. On a sentence level, her writing is hilarious and smart, sometimes even brilliant. But the underlying feature of the book as a whole is laziness, as though Klein squeezed in writing the chapters between her many other responsibilities.
