Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (Rae)

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl 
Issa Rae, 2015
Atria / 37 Ink
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476749051


Summary
In the bestselling tradition of Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, a collection of humorous essays on what it’s like to be unabashedly awkward in a world that regards introverts as hapless misfits, and black as cool.

My name is "J" and I’m awkward—and black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right. Where do I start?

Being an introvert in a world that glorifies cool isn’t easy. But when Issa Rae, the creator of the Shorty Award–winning hit series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, is that introvert—whether she’s navigating love, work, friendships, or "rapping"—it sure is entertaining. Now, in this debut collection of essays written in her witty and self-deprecating voice, Rae covers everything from cybersexing in the early days of the Internet to deflecting unsolicited comments on weight gain, from navigating the perils of eating out alone and public displays of affection to learning to accept yourself—natural hair and all.

A reflection on her own unique experiences as a cyber pioneer yet universally appealing, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is a book no one—awkward or cool, black, white, or other—will want to miss. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 12, 1985
• Raised—Potomac, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University
• Awards—Shorty Award, Best Web Show
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California


Issa Rae is an American actress and writer. She is the creator of the YouTube workplace-comedy series Awkward Black Girl as well as Ratchet Piece Theater, The "F" Word, and The Choir. Since the premiere of Awkward Black Girl in 2011, Rae’s shows have garnered over 20 million views and over 180,000 subscribers on YouTube. She is also the author of a 2015 collection of personal essays, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

Personal life
As a child, Rae lived in Potomac, Maryland, where she grew up with "things that aren't considered 'black,' like the swim team and street hockey and Passover dinners with Jewish best friends."[2] When she was in sixth grade, her family moved to Los Angeles and enrolled her in a predominantly black middle school where she was “berated for ‘acting white'" and initially found it difficult to "fit into this ‘blackness’ I was supposed to be."

Rae attended Stanford University and graduated in 2007. As a college student, she made music videos, wrote and directed plays, and created a mock reality series called Dorm Diaries for fun. It was at Stanford that she met Tracy Oliver, who helped produce Awkward Black Girl and starred on the show as Nina. The two started taking classes together at the New York Film Academy.

After graduation, Rae worked odd jobs and at one point was struggling between business school and law school, but abandoned both ideas when Awkward Black Girl started taking off.

Early career
Rae created Awkward Black Girl out of the belief Hollywood stereotypes of African-American women were limiting: "I felt like my voice was missing, and the voices of other people that I really respect and admire and wanna see in the mainstream are missing." Her other show—Ratchet Piece Theater, The "F" Word, Roomieloverfriends, and The Choir—also focus on African-American experiences that are often not portrayed in the mainstream media.

In 2012, Rae made it to the Forbes "30 Under 30" Entertainment list, and Awkward Black Girl won the Shorty Award for Best Web Show. In 2013, she began working on a pilot for the show I Hate LA Dudes. She has also teamed up with Larry Wilmore to co-write Non-Prophet, an HBO comedy series about the awkward experiences of a contemporary African-American woman, in which she will be starring. Rae is currently signed with UTA and 3 Arts Entertainment. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/22/2015.)

Book Reviews
[Rae's] unwavering candidness, the sheer energy of her voice and the fact that she clearly finds herself to be terrific material make her a charismatic, if occasionally exasperating, narrator worth rooting for.... Some readers...may be offended but laugh out loud anyway.... An authentic and fresh extension of the author's successful Web series
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Rae writes candidly about her family in nearly all of her essays. How does she use humor to write about very private family stories in a very public way?

2. The anonymity of the internet, particularly in its early days, when it was difficult to upload pictures and find out who was friends with whom, allowed Issa to project a personality different from her own. Was that the internet’s "age of innocence," or the beginning of so many troubles we now associate with hook up culture?

3. Like so many, Issa struggles with weight, sometimes putting on thirty pounds more than what she deems optimal. After successfully completing the Master Cleanse she writes, "once the compliments come in, you're totally seduced into equating self-worth with skinniness....The compliments were the most addictive drug of all." Can you relate? Do you, too, "live for that validation that accompanies weight loss"?

4. Issa writes amusingly of the apprehension she felt as a young girl when she thought she might be expected to fulfill stereotypes associated with being black: to either know the latest hit rap lyrics by heart or to be able to dance like she came straight from a video shoot. She felt as if she were expected to "put my hands on my knees, pop my booty, and do the Tootsie Roll." How does she use humor to deflect the anxiety? What stereotypes have people projected onto you, and how do you deflect their assumptions?

5. Race is a central issue in the book, but Rae describes her frustration at people who make it a central point in their lives. How does she walk this line herself in the book?

6. In "Leading Lady," Rae writes, "You could say I have an entertainment complex. It stems from growing up during the golden age of nineties television. I look back and realize what a huge and amazing influence it was to have an array of diverse options to watch almost every night of the week." She then laments how the subsequent decade offered fewer options. What about now? Are our choices more diverse? Does the internet, with YouTube and the like, level the playing field in a substantive way?

7. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is about learning to accept yourself. In Rae’s case she had to accept that she was typically the most awkward girl in the room. How did being an introvert limit her? If you are an introvert, how does it limit you? Is the world easier for extroverts?

8. How is Rae’s life and artistry unique to the internet age?

9. Is it okay to use humor to talk about difficult subjects? Are there any taboo subjects, i.e. those that simply can't be approached with anything approaching humor or satire?

10. In "The Struggle" Rae writes, "I love being black; that's not a problem. The problem is that I don't want to always talk about it" Does being a card-carrying member of one group mean you always have to represent that group in public? What group do you represent, and are you expected to always speak for that group? (Gay, Asian, single mom, Latin, trust-fund baby, Jewish, geek, metrosexual, big girls, skinny girls, for example).

11. The topic of infidelity is a difficult one to approach with cool-headed nuance. How does Rae come to terms with this difficult topic in her life?

12. In what ways does Issa’s unique background—half African, half African-American, one half of her childhood spent on the East Coast, the other on the West Coast—position her to see the world in a unique way? If your life is also composed of interesting cultures, how has your perspective on life been influenced? Is it empowering? Or more fractious?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)