Chelsea Handler’s hilarious account of her sex life from the age of seven when she walked in on her parents having sex to the end of an excursion of one night stands will leave you laughing. The novel has hilarious, awkward scenarios paired with some heart-felt advice and laugh out loud musings.
For those of you who enjoy the traditional narrative voice of a piece of fiction, this novel is not for you. The story is told in a conversationalist tone, as though you are hearing a story from one of your girlfriends over cocktails. If you don’t know how you feel about this form of narration, I advise you to read this book. Afterwards, you feel as though you and Handler are best friends, or least friends like the Sex and the City girls.
Since this novel has a conversationalist tone and since Handler is first a comedian, there are no substantial descriptions. Most of the names have been changed. But this is Handler’s story, so she has creative liberty to alter names and even events if she so pleases.
There are some amazing one liners that I absolutely had to highlight in this novel, such as:
“Even if times are tough and you’re enduring a terrible heartache, it’s important to focus on a vibrator, not another person.”
“If you’re really unlucky, they’ll ask you to recite a poem at their wedding. That’s just what I want to do—monitor my drinking until I’m done with my public service announcement.”
“There are two kinds of people I don’t trust: people who don’t drink and people who collect stickers.”
This novel is very age centered. Had I read this book four years ago, it would have offended me. If I read this book fifteen years from now, I would probably also be offended. The humor is also crude and may not be funny to some people. If you are in your 20s/ early 30s and have a sense of humor, this is a good beach read.
I give My Horizontal Life a 3.5. It was a good read the first time and I would read it again, but it isn’t one of my absolute favorites.
