I SHOULDN'T BE TELLING YOU THIS

How a young woman with the odds stacked against her built a life of creativity and love, with her sense of humor as antidote, superpower, and best revenge.

In loose essays revolving around the women in her life—her mother and godmother, close friends, celebrity role models, colleagues in the comedy business, etc.—Devantez wisecracks and trash-talks her way through her autobiography. Her story begins in poverty and under the thumb of her mother's bad choices in men—"Limoncello," who she believed was her biological father, and "Bubba," the river-rafting guide who replaced him; zigzags through her coming-of-age as a writer and performer in New York and Chicago; and ends with a heartwarming nuptial event including numerous bad-ass bridesmaids and a "Museum of Us" with mannequins wearing the clothes from the couple's first date. The author provides useful lessons on how to throw a fun wedding, survive a toxic friendship, deal with finding out you were fathered by a sperm donor; and navigate the complex and often confining hoops of a career in comedy. Several blurbers use the word raw, including her former boss, Jon Stewart (her writing for him was Emmy nominated), and they mean the good kind of raw: in your face, edgy, vulnerable. However, the narrative is also the other kind: undercooked. Without chronological order, the overall sense of story and momentum are less powerful than they should be, and more vigorous streamlining would have improved the text. What the author characterizes as the most important story, a "Big Scary Domestic Violence Thing," is redacted, apparently for legal reasons, throughout the essay—frustrating for the author and readers alike. Devantez loves celebrity memoir, hosting a Glamorous Trash podcast on this topic; her listeners will eat this book up just as it is.

Funny, sad, overwhelming, and full of good intentions and sound advice.