Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-bye! [Paperback]

Cynthia Heimel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 1994

She is equal parts urban mystic, best friend, and hip observer of the madness around her. As wit, raconteur, and Problem Lady columnist, Cynthia Heimel speaks to the heart of our post-modern angst, and says what needs to be said about the spoken and silent battles between men and women, the problem with mothers, the desperate search for a dress that's not designed for an anorectic teenager, the joy of pet ownership, and more. From the personal to the political and back again, Cynthia Heimel skewers, satirizes, challenges, and champions our ever-strange society -- with the wisdom of a scholar and the passion of one possessed.
"Like Dorothy Parker, Ms. Heimel is an urban romantic with a scathing X-ray vision that penetrates her most deeply cherished fantasies." The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of Heimel's most trenchant and incisive books: she wrangles with feminism, family values, these modern times, shopping, and the battle of the sexes in her inimitable no-holds-barred assault on complacency.

From Library Journal

It's no surprise that the author of If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet ? ( LJ 4/15/91), Sex Tips for Girls ( LJ 6/15/83), and But Enough About You (S. & S., 1986) has come up with another snappy eyebrow-raising title. Her brief essays here reflect the same satirical feminist wit that graces the pages of the Village Voice and Playboy magazine. Among the weighty issues Heimel tackles are boyfriends ("a woman needs a man like a fish needs a net"), dysfunctional family values ("PBS would be bankrupt if its fund-raisers didn't feature hours of John Bradshaw explaining to sobbing audiences how our families fill us with toxic shame and make it impossible for us to have anything other than lives of agony"), and living in L.A. ("Out here I have a car, and I don't know if anyone in Manhattan knows this, but a car is just a moving, giant handbag!"). Brash, hip, and very, very funny, Heimel is essential for all humor collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/93.
- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 179 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st Ballantine Bks Ed., Apr.1994 edition (March 8, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449909069
• ISBN-13: 978-0449909065
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,569,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious book validates trashy-mouthed babes, March 18, 1998

By 

Marki Shalloe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-bye! (Paperback)

Cynthia Heimel has written another great "just say YES" book. Yes to sex, yes to drugs, and yes to rock&roll. Heimel writes what most of us have been thinking all along...that we're not all sweet, shy, moral creatures with perfect blow-dry bobs. Some of us are wild haired, trashy-mouthed girls that just wanna have fun. Heimel tells us how to do it. Be good to your dog, like your kids but give 'em space, treat everyone well but take no crap from anybody...and if that doesn't work, drink and play pool in a smoky gin-joint until you can pick up one of the band members. Heimel's not unsentimental. She writes poignantly about women struggling to raise kids on their own and women that are beginning to hit the end of their babe years. She is giggle-to-yourself funny when writing about (and against) answering machines, fashion, and rich people. I've read all Heimel's books by now and am willing to bribe her to write another. Fix yourself a drink, get under the covers, and enjoy this trashy, funny book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny Urban Rants, July 18, 2001

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-bye! (Paperback)

Cynthia Heimel's Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye first got my attention in the bookstore because of its title (like most of her books) and the inside material, for the most part, did not disappoint. First of all, this book is funny but it is also, often, bitter in an angry urban way that can remind one of a downtown Dorothy Parker. But, to repeat, it is funny. She does not tackle any surprising issues, instead sticking to family, the battle between the sexes, feminism and L.A. (as only a New Yorker truly can) but she handles them with fresh insights and, once again, humour. A nice collection of pieces.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Heimel's Best, June 26, 2001

By 

Patrick Burnett "penngos" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye (Hardcover)

Cynthia Heimel is known for her angry-grrl rag, dished up with a healthy sense of humor, so I was up for a little good-natured male-bashing when I read this book. I was a little unprepared for the torrent of angry essays I found upon reading past the introduction.

Not an essay passes without Heimel wanting to shoot or stab someone because they don't agree with her or haven't acheived the same level of spiritual enlightenment. Women who want boyfriends? Shoot 'em. Sexist men? Shoot 'em. Women who are getting sex because they aren't feminists? Shoot 'em. Heimel's world is a bloodbath, with her unhumorous hand on the trigger.

I don't have a problem with women who write that men are jerks, since most of us are. But I can't advocate gunning us down because we're insensitive, not even in jest. When you pick up a book by a celebrated humorist, you expect to find some clever observations and maybe a few unpopular ideas. But this was just a barrage of meanness worthy of Sam Kinnison or Andrew Dice Clay.