OK, now that my desperate plea for a BFF-ship with Miranda is out of the way I will move on to the next best thing: her book. Is It Just Me? she asks. Well, Miranda, no it is not. While I was reading this book, lying in bed with my cat on my chest (yes, chest, she does that and looks at me while I read. Occasionally she sneezes, spraying all over me. Is that just my cat or is it common? I really should ask the vet.....anyway) I felt as I was reading about me, or a slightly more exaggerated version of me.
The book is, in sort, an autobiography but not the typical kind. This is Miranda's journey through all the different social situation "normal" people (aka people who are not as awesome (sucking up, here, Miranda, are you reading this??) as Miranda) find easy to deal with. Miranda on the other hand manages to make these seemingly easy things quite difficult to deal with. Each chapter is about one thing like music, office life, holidays, Christmas and her relationship with her dog, with a special appearance of 18 year old Miranda who is not very happy with the life the current Miranda is leading.
But all jokes aside, this book is pretty amazing. When I picked it up at Heathrow last summer I was expecting a lighthearted read, which it is for the most parts. But when I finished reading it it dawned on me: I just read the best self help book I could possibly ever read. Now, wasn't that a surprise? My dear friend Miranda (there, I said it), a self help guru. Amazing!
When all is said and done, this little gold nugget of a book makes you really feel like everything will be OK and it is OK to be your self. You don't have to listen to a band you hate to be cool or study something you secretly loathe just because you are trying to be someone else (18 year old Miranda, I'm looking at you). You don't have to be the prettiest girl or the fittest boy to be happy or have a crazy active social life. It's perfectly alright to be the Plain Jane (what ever that is) and sit at home on Friday night watching bad TV (in fact, that is awesome!). As long as YOU are happy what does it matter what other people think?
God, I'm getting emotional writing this! Which goes to show how great this book is, doesn't it? I think it says a lot about a book when it makes you laugh all the way through but manages in the end to secretly hug you and say: "Everything will be alright and you are awesome just the way you are."
Thank you, my dear chum Miranda, for writing this book. (What a great word that is, chum....).
I highly recommend you read this, it should be on the curriculum in every school!
My chummy being awesome
No comments:
Post a Comment