Thank you so much! I am suuuuuuuper excited about this title because I loved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend so much. I'll be recommending this book on an episode of the Read Harder podcast for 2021 (part of Book Riot's premium Insiders program https://insiders.bookriot.com/?_ga=2.201177518.1218815625.1606153432-1674759145.1605759469). The episode will air in February.

I was a fan of Rachel Bloom going into this book, and I remain a fan after reading it. 

I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are is an enjoyable memoir, though it's not without heavy content - her reflection on mental health throughout, and the current COVID-19 pandemic in the afterword, felt particularly poignant.

It took me awhile to get through the first several chapters on her childhood. Once I hit the teenage years, I read the rest of the book in one sitting.

I feel like Bloom is well aware of what my (and perhaps others') greatest criticism of the book is: I wanted more on Crazy Ex-girlfriend. I respect that that wasn't the scope of this book, and that she wanted to instead focus on her relationship to "normality," but that doesn't mean I didn't want to read more on CXG. I did! That's just because it was an important show to me personally. I also really think they did something special. What a treat it was, to crawl inside the head of one of its creators for a few hours. 

Because this book isn't focused on CXG, I don't think you need to have seen the show to appreciate I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are. I'd especially recommend it to those who like Jenny Lawson's writing. And musical theater jokes - those did make their way in!

I'll start out with my main takeaway: this book was delightful and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to read it. (Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing!)  This book that had me laughing out loud, but also had moments of great poignance. 

The Afterward is the stand-out for me, as a 2020 reader. It is the perfect balance of honesty, pathos, and humor. It would be worth buying this book just to read that short section.  (Looking back, I realize that some of my favorite sections came toward the end—her experience performing at the Emmys; her satire about relating to social media trolls, dealing with bullying at work (including a time-travel conversation) and finding peace with past experiences of bullying. I also appreciated Bloom's discussion of how OCD has manifested in her life and how she has found ways to move forward in a healthy way. 

On a lighter note, it was fun seeing the reality of shape wear—including pictures! I loved the musical number that's available in audio online, and based on that, I believe a lot of this book would be ideally experienced as an audiobook. While Bloom is certainly a hilarious and talented writer, at her heart she is a performer. Hearing her perform the book would elevate the whole experience.

Again, I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read and review "I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are." Thank you so much for sharing it with me.

When I saw this book come up, I immediately downloaded it and moved it to the top of my pile. (If you don't know who Rachel Bloom is, you need to watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend immediately!) This book of memoir/essays touches on the show but is also about growing up strange, getting bullied, etc, etc. Same sense of humor, and same potty mouth. I laughed quite a few times. And I love the Apple paperback feeling of this cover.

One chapter is a full musical production that can be listened to on her website while you read the book. If there is an audio version, that might be the best way to read the book.

This was my most anticipated celebrity memoir this year, and I loved it so much. I was introduced to Rachel Bloom via Crazy Ex Girlfriend, which I obviously loved (a musical interlude with a wild music video speaks directly to me). This is exactly the kind of honest humor I expected it to be, and sometimes painfully relatable. Rachel is honest about her struggles and insecurities, about mental health, and the exact right amount to love Disney. This is quirky, funny, warm, and speaks truth, even when things get a little awkward or intimate.

I love Rachel Bloom and every show she's ever worked on. Funny as heck, and the memoir is the very best. Highly recommend!

Included as November top pick in attached link.

I was not familiar with author and comedian Rachel Bloom before reading this book but I found her writing to be thoroughly entertaining while also being very open and vulnerable. I especially connected with her sections on mental health, feeling like an outsider, and experiencing rejection.

I found it super refreshing how Bloom could share such an array of thoughts, some funny and some heartbreaking within a few sentences. It is such an important reminder that sharing all parts of life actually helps connects us, and reminds us that we probably have more in common than we initially thought.

I will say that some of it felt a bit over the top and some of the essays resonated with me more than others, but this is often what happens for me when reading this with this style of writing. Nevertheless, Bloom is a talented creator and I love her goal of helping unite us through our weird thoughts and tendencies.

I was also totally drawn to this book by its cover, so props to Rachel Bloom and her publishing team for a book cover that totally reminded me of my childhood Sweet Valley High books I read under the covers with a flashlight...

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for a gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

It’s funny. It’s weird. It’s occasionally oddly insightful and poignant. Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, this book is everything I hoped for and then some, a candid testament to the value of honesty and the absolute falseness of the idea that everyone else is normal while you’re just an oddball. From the inimitable Rachel Bloom, creator/star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and creator of amazing songs/music videos including “Fuck Me Ray Bradbury” and “I Steal Pets,” comes a memoir that I can truly say is unlike any memoir I’ve read to date. It contains some echoes of other fun female-comedian-memoirs like Amy Poehler’s Yes, Please…and then amps up the weirdness to a new, wholly delightful level.

In lieu of a plot summary (because…you know…memoir plots are fairly self-explanatory?) I’ll give you a quick rundown of things included in this bite-size tome:

Poetry written by Rachel as a child
A sample resume for theater people
A guide to dealing with bullies
A literal map of a hypothetical amusement park
A short-form musical about Rachel’s experiences in theater growing up (you can listen to all 15 minutes of it on her website, too! Yes, you can even listen now, if you don’t mind spoilers for…uh…her life I guess?)
Excerpts from childhood-Rachel’s diary
An “interview” between Rachel at age 23 and Rachel at age 13
A chapter from the point of view of Rachel’s dog
A one-question personality quiz
Explanations of jokes that almost got cut from the script of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for being too dirty
A complaint about straight men in musical theater
A Harry Potter fanfic about the Hogwarts Drama Club
…and so much more!

Rachel Bloom’s life has been marked by intermittent battles with anxiety and OCD, a love of theater that eventually led to her musical-comedy career, feelings of profound isolation, and a deep respect for the creative activity that results from excessive time spent in the bathroom (it’s a whole thing, you’ve just got to read it to understand). This book talks about sex, mental health, Disney, and everything in between. And yet, for all the crazy turns her life has taken, Rachel Bloom has always managed to face the weirdness head-on with a combination of pluck, neuroticism, deflection with humor, and a whole lot of heart.

Rachel Bloom is a highly creative, brilliant comedian who also happens to just be brilliant in generally (like, nerdy-intellectual–maybe that should have been obvious from the fact that, again, she once literally wrote a sort-of-parody song about her deep love of Ray Bradbury). The sheer number of chapter formats she was able to fit into this tiny tome–only 288 pages!–while maintaining quality throughout was impressive to say the least. She managed to weave through thematic threads, especially the idea of “normalcy” and whether that’s even really a thing, while also avoiding the common memoir pitfall of becoming ultra-repetitive.

Rachel’s narrative voice is clear, conversational, and laugh-out-loud hilarious (no, seriously, I laughed audibly quite a few times while reading this one). I think this tone is a perfect fit for this sort of book, where a lot of the stories are cringe-inducing and could be horribly embarrassing if treated too seriously (e.g. bad relationship patterns, sex stuff, the aforementioned bathroom thing). It feels more like a chat with a friend than a lecture from a celebrity, which, you know, I guess is kind of the point. I was also a big fan of her footnotes throughout, sometimes clarifying points but often just adding fun jokes on top of already-comedic tales.

The book also felt very of-this-moment; while a lot of it was written pre-pandemic, the epilogue addressed some more recent events in Rachel’s life, including the birth of her daughter, the death of her long-time friend and cowriter Adam Schlesinger, and the general pervasive unease that has followed us all through the age of COVID-19. After J.K. Rowling’s horrible comments about trans people over the summer, Rachel added a footnote to her Potter fanfic chapter indicating her disagreement with those views, her conflicted feelings about the series in light of it’s author’s behavior, and pointing out that fanfic isn’t official and, therefore, does not give any money to Her Royal TERFiness.

There were only a handful of sections in the book that missed the mark for me. The chapter from the perspective of Rachel’s dog, Wiley, didn’t quite land; it was a good idea and writing style, but using it to tell the story of Rachel winning an Emmy felt forced. The picture of Wiley afterward was so freaking adorable, though. And another chapter, an extended parable about wanting to be liked, dragged on longer than necessary without the payoff that I would expect from a section that took up that many pages. But really, in a book with so many amazing elements, two small missteps hardly tarnish my feelings about the rest of it!

Let’s face it: 2020 has been stressful as heck. I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are is the sort of quick, optimistic, relatable book we need right now to remind us we aren’t alone. It doesn’t shy away from hard topics, but it puts everything in a light acknowledging that things can get better. And, of course, a reminder that normalcy is not just overrated, but nonexistent.

I have to admit that it was only the title and cover that led me to request I Wanna Be Where the Normal People Are. It was a few days after the most traumatic presidential election I'd ever experienced, and I thought, "Yes, I, too, want to be where normal people are. Where is that? Does this Rachel Bloom have the answer? I must read it immediately and find out." I needed to laugh, and Rachel Bloom supplied that in plenty.

I will say this collection of essays is not for the faint of heart. It's irreverent, raw, and there's a lot of talk about bathrooms and things that happen in bathrooms. But I had so much fun reading it. I think if we all spoke our true thoughts all the time, we would have much less anxiety--and a lot less friends, but are they really our friends if we can't speak our true thoughts to them??

I wasn't sure who Rachel Bloom even was when I requested this book, but I was pretty sure I'd seen the pilot episode of My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the musical dramedy she co-created and starred in. I remembered thinking it was funny, and now I'm not sure why I didn't watch more episodes. I'll be remedying that soon!

The first half of the book is my favorite. It's organized in a somewhat chronological order, so it starts with Rachel's childhood and goes forward. I could identify with her stories of being bullied, feeling awkward, and coming to accept who she really is--and what that even means. It's rewarding (and funny) to read how she learns to be happy with herself, and how she ultimately decides "normal" is overrated.

If you’re a ‘theater/theatre’ person, you’ll appreciate her essays on that, as well. She writes about being a woman in the theater, as well as being the only woman in a television writing room.

A bit of a mixed media book, it contains diary excerpts, drawings, and poems. This is a quick and utterly satisfying read!

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and Netgalley for an advance reader's copy.

I WANT TO BE WHERE THE NORMAL PEOPLE ARE • Rachel Bloom • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m just a girl in love...with Rachel Bloom. Read these essays. Laugh a little, love Bloom a lot.  Thats it.  Thats the review.

In all seriousness, this essay collection is a delight that is so authentically Bloom that I felt like she was in the room with me.  Sure, some of the topics are super weird, and you may sit there thinking "what the hell am I reading?" but that is what separates this book for so many other celebrity memoirs.  I anticipate doing a re-read oof this book soon, this time on audiobook (assuming Bloom narrates this book herself).

Read This Book If:
- You love the TV show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," Rachel Bloom, theater/acting/comedy, Harry Potter fan fiction (along with a footnote voicing how we all feel about how bad J.K. Rowling sucks), or stories about poop.
- You are looking for a light-hearted read to knock out in one after noon.
- You have always felt...not normal.  Whether it be because of bullies, quirky habits/hobbies, or something else entirely.  Bloom bears all and reminds us that maybe there is no such thing as normal, and if there is, maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be.
- You are here for the weird and the wonderful.

TL;DR: Just pick this one up or at the very least, borrow it from a friend or the library.  It is a quick read and even if it's not for you, this book is an experience everyone should have.

You may know Rachel Bloom as the creator and star of the CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. But even if you don't, you'll likely enjoy this delightfully weird memoir on what it's like to be a weirdo surrounded by normal people. From a musical about Bloom's love of musical theater to a map of her dream amusement park, this book plays with form and takes you on an adventure through Bloom's weird brain. The essays felt a little disjointed at times and I think the whole book could have used a bit of a stronger concept. But honestly, I blew through this book in a day because I couldn't wait to see what weird direction the next chapter would take. I bet the audiobook is even better!

Fans of Rachel Bloom and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will devour this collection of essays. Bloom's humor is as pointed as ever--dry, clever, at turns both exhausting and exhilarating. Sharing details of her life both frivolous and deep, Bloom offers the reader a hilarious and poignant exploration of what exactly "normal" is, and if any of us are really normal at all. Will this book change your life? Probably not. Will it bring you a lot of joy for a few hours? Absolutely.

My thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for an advance reader's copy.

Just when I thought I couldn't love Rachel Bloom any more! This book was hilarious. The essays were quippy and bordering on ridiculous (and sometimes just crossing way over into that territory), in the best way possible. I love Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but after reading this I feel committed to partake in whatever Rachel's next works will be.

I'm a big fan of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, even though sometimes I found it over the top or too broad. I expected this book to be over the top too, but in an enjoyable way. I certainly didn't hate it, in fact parts were great, and it's a quick read, but it was a lot of too much.

I connected most with the book when it wasn't trying so hard, which is the irony of dealing with a theatre kid; trying hard is what they're going to give you. The parts of the book that did not have a layer of artifice between the story and the reader, whether that artifice was a Harry Potter fanfiction, or a script, or a personality quiz, etc. are the ones that work the best. I'm actually fascinated by someone who is as willing to be vulnerable as Rachel Bloom is, and her ideas are the strongest when she's not putting hats on hats.

I often think there are sex joke people and then there are poop joke people, but Rachel Bloom manages to be both.  I had trouble with all the poop jokes, honestly, but there's something really interesting about her story about being toilet trained, and what, if any, is the purpose of shame in society. There are lots of sources of shame I wish people could free themselves from (shame about bodies, shame about mental illness), and then there are times I feel like people could really use some shame (sex pests, maybe poop storytellers?)

Ultimately, if you've seen CXG and Rachel Bloom's brand of zaniness is up your alley, you'll probably enjoy this.

I had never watched "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" before reading Bloom's book, but I knew of her. I laughed out loud at several points in this book. It was honest, amusing as hell and just enjoyable from start to finish. Bloom was unashamedly herself as she told stories about her youth, her adolescence, her college years, up to her days as a star. I especially enjoyed reading about what it's really like at award shows. She's relatable and irreverent and it comes across as such in this book. Thank you for making me smile in 2020, Rachel Bloom.

Rachel's memoir (makes noises about a memoir being written by someone younger than our oldest children...) / collection of essays is pitch perfect for any reader who has enjoyed her work as a screenwriter / songwriter. Her trademark frankness taken one step farther than the audience may be comfortable with is on display here to full effect, as she recounts her journey from being a defiantly outlier kid to a successful award-winning more insightful version of that dramatic and vulnerable person.

I really, really love everything that Rachel Bloom does: all her comedy, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, even her Instagram. However, I had such a hard time connecting with this book. I wanted there to be a MUCH stronger narrative arc, particularly in the beginning.

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Rachel Bloom and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" is one of my favorite shows of all time. I loved reading Bloom's voice as she recounted her childhood, experiences with mental illness, and early days as a comedy writer and actor. She writes candidly and comically throughout but still gives emotional weight to sections that deserve it. The afterword especially packs a punch in light of the death of Adam and the COVID-19 pandemic. I highly recommend this to fans of the show or libraries that serve lots of theater kids.

This just did not hit for me. Perhaps the humor just didn’t tickle my funny bone, or the weirdness that is living with COVID makes this not fall for me. In any case, I found this not funny and a bit anxiety producing. Putting it aside for now.

essentially the same as ‘Crazy Ex Girlfriend’ except for Rachel Bloom instead of Rebecca Bunch + book form instead of musical comedy tv form. these two crucial differences account for all differences between the book & award-winning show. I WANT TO BE WHERE THE NORMAL PEOPLE ARE hits similar achievements: various formats throughout it, calming fusion of humor & vulnerability, & ultimately a strong feeling that the reader isn’t alone. the afterword made me cry bc the author’s friend & writing-partner Adam Schlesinger died of COVID. she conveys in the the afterword that she hasn’t fully processed it yet bc we’re still in the midst of COVID, hence doesn’t seem real that one of the most important people in her life is no longer on earth. so sad, & my heart breaks for everyone close to Adam Schlesinger. book dedicated to him. I relate deeply to Rachel Bloom & to ‘Crazy Ex Girlfriend.’ I’ve watched the show several times, & this won’t be my last time reading the book.