My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler

From the Publisher

In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.

Publishers Weekly

Opening with a cute story from when she was seven and photographed her parents having sex, stand-up comedian Handler goes on to discuss the virtues of the one-night stand, which amount to having sex early enough so you're not months into a relationship before you discover he's into "anal beads and duct tape." She discusses her quest for sex with a "black man," which doesn't work out because the date she finds on ChocolateSingles.com has a penis so large, she "would have had to be the size of the Lincoln Tunnel to accommodate that thing." After him, there's a "little midget," but she sobers up before sleeping with him. Next come a number of would-be partners with penises too small to consider. Finally, there's a guy Handler does sleep with, only an embarrassing incident involving a "giant skid mark" prevents her from seeing him again. By the end, Handler considers settling down with one man, which might actually net her more sex than these mostly unconsummated one-night stands. Anyone who laughs at the mere mention of vaginas and penises may find Handler's book almost as much fun as getting drunk and waking up in some stranger's bed. Agent, Michael Broussard Dupree. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Handler, a stand-up comedienne and featured prankster on the television show Girls Behaving Badly, now adds author to her r sum . Chronicling her often wild sex life, this collection of offbeat and laugh-out-loud-funny essays includes a tale of waking up naked with a midget and a narrative of an affair with a Vegas stripper. Though the book seems to rely on the humor of the actual one-night stand, the standout pieces occur near the end, as Handler's attempts at casual sex become less successful and she begins to consider adopting a slightly more conservative lifestyle. In fact, the most entertaining essay concerns not sex but her substance-abusing gay friend's antics at her sister's wedding. Drawing on a supporting cast of hilariously well-drawn family members and friends, Handler succeeds in penning a smart, funny, and quick read. The booze-fueled tales of sex, however, are most likely inappropriate for school and academic libraries or more conservative communities. Recommended for the Sex and the City crowd in public libraries.-Amanda Glasbrenner, New York Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Disjointed, lackluster musings on her promiscuous social life, by directionless if cheerful Handler. The L.A.-based standup comic here relates the meandering story of her many sexual misadventures. She starts with a not-very-amusing incident: at six years old, she was persuaded by her sister to take a picture of her parents having sex. (Dad was pissed: imagine that.) Moving on to her teenaged adventures at the Jersey shore, Handler invites us to find it hilarious that she picked up a good-looking man, had sex with him immediately, and dated him for months despite the fact that she couldn't stand talking to him. The joke in the next section is that while her father was a racist, she personally dated a wonderful black man, and it inspired her to want to sleep with many more of them. Next comes what's supposed to be an entertaining misunderstanding involving her sisters and the fact that Handler did not in fact have sex with the naked midget they found in her hotel room. In one genuinely funny moment, the author was dismayed to find that the handsome stripper she picked up wanted to tell her his real name and discuss the fact that what he really wanted to do was act-it figures that she would get stuck with the guy who wanted a real relationship. There is more: the one-night stand who showed up at the restaurant where she worked and was seated in her section, with his girlfriend (Handler pretends she is her own identical twin and has never seen him before); the friend who plays a practical joke on her by telling Handler's date that she has a terminal disease and just wants to cuddle; the gay friend invited to be her date for a wedding who terrorized her family. It might work as standup, butwhen transferred to the page this shtick is a groaner.

Product Details

• ISBN: 1582346186
  
• ISBN-13: 9781582346182
• Format: Paperback, 213pp
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Pub. Date: June 2005
• Sales Rank: 680