Book Review
Title: My Horizontal Life - A Collection of One-Night Stands
Author: Chelsea Handler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Publication Date: May 12, 2005
Number of Pages: 213
ISBN: 1582346186 

Reviewed By: Karen O'Connor (Okinawa Correspondent - Japan)

It's the morning after finishing My Horizontal Life and I feel like I've got a hangover from all the drinking stand-up comedienne Chelsea Handler wrote about.  My Horizontal Life is a collection of stories about Handler's adventures in the art of the one-night stand.  Though laugh out loud funny at moments, most of the time I just felt sorry for Handler and the poor decisions she made during her late teens and twenties.  She comes across as a miserable drunk in most stories and if she isn't drunk she fixes that quickly with a bottle of Kettle One Vodka.  

"After I regained my composure, I realized it was time to formulate a plan.  Step one was to start drinking immediately.  I was always more logical when I drank." 

I was never a big drinker during my partying years and still am not but I admit, I like to tie one on once in a blue moon.  A good night of drinking just reminds me that I'm not that tough and I can be annoying and funny all at once.  It also reminds me that I'm not getting any younger.   Reading this book made me feel really good about the misadventures I had in my twenties, though no one-night stands.  I am able to look back on my twenties as one of the most fun times in my life and I am grateful for those memories. 

I counted up how many men Handler wrote about (slept with) in My Horizontal Life and after all is said and done the tally only came to fifteen.  The characters that she finds herself in bed or close to bed with aren't too interesting really.  They just come across as lonely as she does.

"I sat on my kitchen floor wondering what kind of people I was friends with.  I also wondered if I was ever going to get married.  After about an hour, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself." 

I hope there is more to Chelsea Handler than just misadventures in the world of sleeping around, dating and drinking till she can't drink anymore.  Which seems to take forever.  

"This could definitely turn into a relationship.  I knew because I didn't want to sleep with him right away, and I've felt that way only a couple of times."

"The thought occurred to me that the one-night stand was not nearly as much fun as it used to be.  I felt disgusted with myself for being so disappointed in a complete stranger not being able to perform.  I felt like a man must feel after using and abusing women for ages." 

If you didn't have a very adventurous time in your twenties then My Horizontal Life will help you live vicariously through Chelsea Handler and her very colorful times.  If you were wild and crazy and the queen of doing stupid things in your twenties then My Horizontal Life will assure you, that you really weren't that bad.

Karen O'Connor's Blog: Planet Books