Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea [Paperback]

Chelsea Handler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Handler proves the adage that just because one can, doesn't mean one should. This applies to both her role as a writer and a narrator. In this disjointed collection of memories and experiences, even her overenthusiastic voice cannot compensate for the irrelevance and frivolousness that is this book. Her anecdotes cover a range of topics from sex to sibling rivalry to parental humiliation, all showcasing how smart and witty she can be-in hindsight. Whether rambling about how she's freaked out by red-headed men or bemoaning her arrest and short stint in prison, her attempts to be funny fall flat and her valley-girl persona wears quickly on listeners. Her lively voice has the potential to do well with audiobooks, but the overall tone and ecstatic energy she emits only emphasizes the inconsequential prose. Listeners might find themselves asking for Vodka to help reach the end of this production. A Simon & Schuster hardcover.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Review

"Chelsea Handler writes like Judy Blume, if Judy Blume were into vodka, Ecstasy, and sleeping with midgets and nineteen-year-olds."

-- Jennifer Weiner, bestselling author of In Her Shoes

"Ms. Handler's style is a friendlier, more workaday version of the haughty self-abasement practiced by Sarah Silverman, leavened by the everywoman spirit of Kathy Griffin...She seems like a cruel queen bee from an expensive college: There's something suspiciously sophisticated about how her jokes line up that suggests the moral austerity of a comic not of [Joan] Rivers's bad-girl school: Tina Fey."

-- New York Times

"Where have I been all of Chelsea Handler's life? I had no idea how funny, how brilliant she is. She is too clever for words."

-- Liz Smith, New York Post

"Chelsea Handler is a terrific comedian and a hilarious writer."

-- Jay Leno

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Gallery; 1 Reprint edition (December 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416596364
• ISBN-13: 978-1416596363
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (507 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #24 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs
  #6 in	Books > Entertainment > Humor > Essays
  #7 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Entertainers

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cutting Edge Funny Stuff, May 4, 2009

By	D. Muron (Florida) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (Hardcover)

Having seen Chelsea doing stand up and on Girls Behaving Badly, I was anxious to see how her wicked sarcastic wit would translate into text. It's fantastic! A seriously gifted writer, who combines funny and uninhibited raunchiness better than any woman. And it's not just the sheer ridiculous circumstances she encounters. She reflects about her mindless journeys and the meaning of life in such an amusing, self-deprecating and cynical manner.

Filled with funny anecdotes, she has that trashy comedienne's gift of saying everything we think about but are afraid to say. And she manages to share absolutely horrifying events and somehow make them hysterical!

There are some hilarious and uncomfortable family situations. Her father was quite the provider of wisdom, selling used junkyard cars out of their front yard, while making inappropriate sexual innuendos towards his daughters.

There's some really funny and humiliating youth debacles and misadventures. My favorites; her embarrassing and preposterous fake celebrity elementary school tale, a LOL birthday party for a friendless girl full of re-gifting, pretending to be honeymooning with her father in order to upgrade to first class. The Mini-Me and Prison Break chapters are just classics. Frankly if she wasn't successful, she may have ended up a basket case.

At some points in a story, I laughed so hard, my husband kept trying to steal the book from me. I didn't want the book to end. Everyone can find something to relate to in one of these stories.

If you are sensitive or quick to take offense, I would pass on this one. If you have a repressed wild side, you'll dive in headfirst and relish her antics and live vicariously through them. Also, if you like reading funny out of control drinking and sex stories, I'm half-way through Chelsea's other book My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands and it's great.

And although I can't admit it to my husband, I secretly loved the book that is the male version of the same theme. Steamy sex, hilarious, and very Bondish, as in 007.

High Heels and Dirty Deals - Globetrotting Tales of Debauchery from a Binge-drinking Nymphomaniac

248 of 277 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funniest people in America, April 16, 2008

By	D. Buxman "A Seeker of Truth" (Pueblo, CO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (Hardcover)

I actually bought this book for my wife, since she had enjoyed Chelsea Handler's previous book, "My Horizontal Life." When the book arrived yesterday, I picked it up to peruse it and I couldn't put it down. This book is laugh-out-loud funny. The book contains stories from the author's life from around the age of 9 through adulthood that are funny from the perspective of men and women alike. As should be clear from the title, this book isn't for kids and the content can be pretty racy. If you aren't easily offended, however, it will probably be the most humorous book you read this year. I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could.

72 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointed..., July 16, 2008

By	Vince A. (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (Hardcover)

Note to Kindle owners - download the first chapter of the book. If the first chapter makes you laugh then you may enjoy the book. If you're not laughing at that point it doesn't get much better.

I've just finished reading the book and it was one of the hardest times I've ever had finishing a book. Although there are a few laughs here and there, the book wasn't hilarious to say the least. You might laugh once and then wait another chapter or three before the next one comes along. I bought the book because of all of the "rave - laugh out loud" reviews I saw from other readers.

I didn't have a problem with the language, the off-color humor or any of the "offensive" things that were said in the book - it was just boring and not funny. What made it even worse is when some of the gags were used multiple times. For example in one story someone looks like they have Buckwheat in a leg-lock, a few chapters later someone looks like they have a clown in a leg-lock. Again, I was compelled to review this book because I couldn't believe so many people rated it 5-stars. I like her on TV, but the book was a snoozer.