My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands (A Chelsea Handler Book/Borderline Amazing Publishing) Mass Market Paperback – November 19, 2013

chelsea handler is always hilarious, insightful and witty and i die laughing in every book. she is so fabulous i plan to read them all

I have been a long time fan of Chelsea Handler, having had watched her on several television shows as well as seeing her stand-up shows. Because I was no stranger to her humor, I expected nothing short of a raunchy explanation of past exploits. What I was not expecting was to be laughing out loud, alone, over a book. As you go through the collection of short stories, not only does the reader get enjoyment, but also a sense of familiarity.Within the first few pages of the book, Chelsea takes you instantly into a world of sexual promiscuity, partying, and humiliation. With each passing story, the reader finds themselves more and more a part of each story. Chelsea's form of "no holds bars" humor and blatant crude depictions keeps the reader constantly engaged. The read was so seamless that I was able to finish it in two days. What keeps the reader going, more so than her hilarious tendencies, is the constant changing from one story to the next. All of the stories tie together into a character that allows the reader to know more and more about Chelsea (or who she is portraying throughout the book.) Without a constant timeline, the stories jump around allowing the reader to not feel bored and easily set the book down for a period of time and pick it back up at their leisure, although I do not know why you would want to.With a lot of comedic novels, it is common that the stories are over the top and unbelievable. I found this book to be completely opposite. It is true that some of the stories seem a little crazy, but knowing a lot of people who have lived or currently live the type of lifestyle she describes, not necessarily out of the realm of possibility. I found myself thinking to myself, "oh... I know that feeling," or, "that reminds me of [so and so,]" which shows either to Chelsea's brilliant retelling of honesty or her how astute her observations are. If it is the latter, the reinterpretation or complete fabrications of such real life stories proves quite impressive.The moral of this review is merely to read it yourself. If you do not find yourself laughing and smiling within a chapter or so, this type of humor may not be your bag, but the book is fluid, easy to read, relatable, and overall worth the time.

When this book came out 20 years ago, I was so mad because I had wanted to write a similar book... That's part of why I waited 20 years to read it. Also I was afraid of getting stoned to death in the town square for admitting to the one night stand.For some reason it didn't occur to me that in spite of the very controversial subject matter, you could make the audience love you instead of hate you... now I know how she does it- she's funny.Good thing Chelsea took the lead on this one. There are several times in the book when you wonder if she is lying or telling the truth.. but you come to the profound awareness that it doesn't matter because she is super funny. Thanks Chelsea this is my type of feminism. Also enjoyed the ending. I won't spoil it for anyone who is going to wait another 20 years to gaze into this sparkling gem. ✨️

Without question, this book is fluff. I feel guilty rating it as highly as I did, but the book is such well-executed fluff that it's difficult to put down. Written as a series of self-contained episodes, Handler chronicles the party-girl days from her late teens to her late twenties and the increasingly bizarre and outlandish situations she finds herself in while pursuing non-committal sex. Popcorn-sized anecdotes and wickedly funny scenarios/dialogue/editorializing keep the momentum up, and she manages to end on a bit of closure--even if the last few sentences culminate in an obvious and not-particularly-funny joke.The book regards sex conversationally--it's bawdy without being explicit. There's some mild feminism at work (Handler regards her proclivities as behaving like a man rather than being a "slut"), but the discussion of sex isn't about titillation. Rather, it's just another platform for humor, and humor is the book's biggest asset. Handler's stand-up background is on display, and she's able to construct stories for great comic effect, with amusing asides that loop back into the narrative only to be called back later. Once or twice her digressions spin mildly out of control and there is a lull somewhere in the middle third where the style of joke-telling starts to grow stale and the anecdotes haven't quite escalated enough to compensate. But that lull is pretty brief, as her stories are soon taken over by colorful characters and bad decisions.This is a memoir, so the details are varying degrees of highly-suspect, but that rarely takes you out of the story, and Handler is by her own admission a pathological liar. If there's a point to all this mess, I never found it, but that doesn't seem to matter. My Horizontal Life is never self-important, never pretentious, and never seems to develop any literary aspirations whatsoever. The book is itself a one-night stand: brief, meaningless fun.