If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You [Hardcover]

Kelly Cutrone (Author), Meredith Bryan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2010

Kelly Cutrone has long been mentoring women on how to make it in one of the most competitive industries in the world. In her trademark, no-bullshit style, she combines personal and professional stories to share her secrets for success without selling out. Raw, hilarious, shocking, but always the honest truth, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside calls upon you to gather up your courage like an armful of clothes at a McQueen sample sale and follow your soul where it takes you. Whether you're just starting out in the world or looking to reinvent yourself, this book will be the spark you need to figure out what you have to say to the world—and how you're going to say it.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In her trademark, no bull-shit style Kelly gives us the raw honest truth in If You Have To Cry, Go Outside. It is an easy fun read book you most likely will read over and over and continue to laugh out loud.” (CupcakeMag.com )

“Some necessary tough-love truths.” (Columbus Ledger-Enquirer )

“Cutrone’s new book If you have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You is a raw, no bullshit, drama and drug–filled autobiographical joy ride that preaches spiritual self-empowerment over self-sabotage..” (Out Magazine )

“In her new book, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You, Cutrone shares personal stories and offers practical advice to encourage readers to figure out what they really want to do and to go out there and do it.” (Aol Career Blog )

“[The] powerhouse fashion PR maven we-love-to-hate-but-really-love...” (Dallas Morning News )

“Kelly’s book is full of anecdotes from her personal and professional life as well as motivational tips.” (People.com )

“Part memoir and part career guide, geared toward young women breaking into the workforce.” (The Village Voice )

“If anything, the word that should be used to describe Cutrone is ‘feminist’ - it’s just that her version of female empowerment involves acknowledging that ‘you’re no different from anyone else and deserve no special treatment’. Unless, of course, you’ve earned it.” (The Sunday Times )

“The book outlines [Cutrone’s] tumultuous rise from homelessness to the fashion elite and serves as a guide for navigating an alternative career path.” (The Harvard Crimson )

“What everyone loves about Kelly Cutrone, owner of fashion PR firm People’s Revolution and The City’s official BS barometer, is that she isn’t afraid to tell it how it is.” (Elle Magazine )

“Choice career and style advice from New York’s most outspoken PR woman.” (WSJ.com )

“Part memoir, part self-improvement sermon (and conspicuously published by HarperOne, the spirituality imprint behind some of Marianne Williamson’s and Deepak Chopra’s books), it recounts Cutrone’s own fitful journey.” (New York Magazine )

“One of the few movers-and shakers who seems to have an enlightened grip on both the dark and light side of the business she navigates with such self-possession.… Clear, concise, to the point, and abrasively, wonderfully honest.” (The L )

“Cutrone gives blunt, how-to advice on how to be a “power bitch”... It’s an old-fashioned guide to succeeding in both life and work (phone, not e-mail, you Gen Y-ers!), with a dash of self-styled spirituality and, of course, all dressed up in Balenciaga.” (New York Post )

“Cutrone, 44, is infamous to the MTV generation for her untimely eruptions and cutting commentaries. Her hellish take on the fashion world is her ticket to stardom....If You Have to Cry, Go Outside (HarperOne), reads as a gritty guide for young women entering the fashion world.” (USA Today )

“Intelligent and witty works of wonder...literary bitch-slaps of unfettered straightfoward speech....an honest, instructional pseudo-memoir targeting a new generation of “young girls and gay boys” who want to break into the fashion industry but are unsure they have the chops for it. ” (Bay Area Reporter )

“Though on her TV show Cutrone’s outer bitch is ascendant, in her book, we’re introduced to the softer side of Kelly. Prone to New Age platitudes like, “Celebrate the magic inside of yourself.” This hippie affect is a delightful surprise coming from a woman who also swears like a sailor.” (Slate.com )

“She’s also publishing a memoir/guide, turning her take-no-prisoners approach to the fashion business into a message of girl power...entertaining for all.” (Los Angeles Times )

“A must-read for career-minded gals entering the workforce – or those who just want to reinvent themselves.” (Star Magazine )

“[A] memoir-ish book of offbeat advice for budding ‘power girls’...” (The Daily Beast )

Book Description

Kelly Cutrone has long been mentoring women on how to make it in one of the most competitive industries in the world. She has kicked people out of fashion shows, forced some of reality television's shiny stars to fire their friends, and built her own company—one of the most powerful PR firms in the fashion business—from the ground up. Through it all, she has refused to be anything but herself.

Kelly writes in her trademark, no-bullshit style, combining personal and professional stories to share her secrets for success without selling out. Let's face it: this is a different world than the one in which our mothers grew up, and Kelly has created a real girl's guide to making it in today's world. Offering a wake-up call to women everywhere, she challenges us to stop the dogged pursuit of the “perfect life” and discover who we are and what we really want. Then she shows us how to go out there and get it. Much of our culture teaches us to muzzle our inner voice and follow the crowd; Kelly enables us to stop pretending and start truly living.

With chapters on how to find your tribe (those like-minded souls who make your heart sing), how sometimes a breakdown is really a breakthrough, and how there is no such thing as perfection, Kelly also shares practical advice, such as how to create a personal brand and how sometimes you have to fake it to make it.

Raw, hilarious, shocking, but always the honest truth, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside calls upon you to gather up your courage like an armful of clothes at a McQueen sample sale and follow your soul wherever it takes you. Whether you're just starting out in the world or looking to reinvent yourself, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside will be the spark you need to figure out what you have to say to the world—and how you're going to say it.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; First Edition edition (February 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061930938
• ISBN-13: 978-0061930935
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kelly Cutrone is the founder of the fashion public relations, branding, and marketing firm People's Revolution, which has represented clients such as Longchamp, Vivienne Westwood, Valentino, Jeremy Scott, Paco Rabanne, Thierry Mugler, Bulgari, Christie's, and more. She stars in Kell on Earth on Bravo and has appeared on MTV's The Hills and The City. Prior to founding People's Revolution, Cutrone cofounded Cutrone & Weinberg and was the director of PR for Spin magazine. Cutrone lives in Manhattan with her daughter, Ava.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

157 of 176 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars self-indulgent; purely a memoir, March 14, 2010

By 

C. B. St Hilaire (Greater Boston Area, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You (Hardcover)

I decided to read this book because I've always had an interest in transitioning into publicity/PR and the book sounded like a great read for female professionals. I thought that, though I'm not necessarily interested in fashion, this would offer some solid career tips from someone that has seen it all. It did have a few tips here and there about being tough, but ultimately, it is titled and positioned incorrectly. It isn't about lessons for career women, but rather the author's memoir about how she landed a career in the fashion PR industry after a drug-ridden and messy period of time earlier in life. There is also an out-of-place section on her spirituality and there are spiritual tips sprinkled throughout.

In fact, the lessons for the readers don't actually start until page 149 in the chapter - "If You Have to Cry, Go Outside." Up until that point, it is a story about how she was addicted to drugs, was saved by her powerful tribe at times, and eventually became really successful. The name-dropping is a bit much. We get from the start that she knows and has worked with some well-known celebrities, but it is overly discussed throughout.

I wasn't looking for a tale of morality, but the whole thing seemed rather shallow. In a section titled "Everything Good Happens After Thirty," one bullet point of advice is: "it's time to step it up a notch and charge headlong into the land of overpriced luxury accessories." Is that really an important part of turning 30? And as my review title states - it is extremely over-indulgent and self-inflated. For example, on page 100 she writes, "A lot of women ask me, 'How do you have it all?'"

If you are curious of the inner workings of the fashion PR industry or if you are a fan of Kelly Cutrone, then it would be a good book for you. She is witty and there were parts that were interesting. If you are a career woman looking for solid advice on being powerful, I think there might be better sources of inspiration for you.

76 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hated every minute of this self indulgent tale, October 29, 2010

By 

Nicksdad "Nicksdad" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You (Hardcover)

(Writing this under my Husband's account)
A good friend recommended this book so I felt obligated to read it from cover to cover. I hated every minute of it... I kept hoping the book would improve. I thought that I'd suddenly turn a corner with Kelly and realize that she had stopped being a self-indulgent, go against the grain just to create waves, name dropping, self important person. Sadly, that never happened and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finished the last page.

The major theme through this book is to create your own religion. She warns not to worship inside a temple, church, whatever because you're limited in that capacity. What she fails to recognize is that her polytheistic approach to her "religious beliefs" leaves her twisting the word of all leaders, all people she might consider to be her God(s) and creates her own ideal. She even goes so far as to brag about this. As a Christian, I was offended several times when she reaffirmed society's tainted view that a woman can not possibly find herself in motherhood, by being a wife, by working in her church or by having a career that isn't the sole focus on her life. Should everyone by a stay-at-home mother and wife who bakes cookies all day and makes sure the house is spotless? NO! In fact it would put most women in their graves. I get that. What Kelly fails to do is recognize that there are some mothers who aren't failing to meet their fullest potential because they do choose to stay at home, bake cookies and do their best to make sure their house is spotless... and fail miserably in most cases. I'm not easily offended. I too have a mouth that needs reminding once in a while. If you're offended by bad language, Kelly makes an art out of using the "f" word repeatedly through this book. I wasn't bothered by this so much as disappointed. Apparently, according to Kelly, she is a very intelligent and accomplished woman. I would hope that she would be more creative in her word choice. Of course, again according to her, it's because she's successful that I criticize her.

Kelly's book is almost a handbook of sorts for anyone that might dare work for her. She talks about how abusive she is to her interns but then quickly makes it okay, again by twisting words, by explaining that she's really just taking care of them and teaching them valuable lessons. She creates social classes in her office by not allowing her interns to eat until everyone else has.... yea, that's cool Kelly. It's all about power and social status that determines one's value right? Go ahead and put down arranged marriages in other cultures that you don't understand but foster the caste system while you're at it.

As I became increasingly angry, I started to come up with choice phrases to call her. As luck would have it, she ends her book with a chapter explaining that it's okay to be a "Bitch." Of course it is because that's exactly what she has touted throughout this book. This book did nothing for me and I definitely don't recommend it.

24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I've read of its kind, February 3, 2010

By 

D. Cameron - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You (Hardcover)

I am a 36-year old working mom- not her target audience I'm sure- but I felt so inspired and re-energized after I read her book. This woman is so real and so fresh. I am buying copies for all my friends and I can't wait to hear what they think too. Highly recommend it for all ages and walks of life.