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Product Details
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Product Description
Review
“Sara Benincasa’s comedy is uplifting, deeply personal, and very funny. As difficult as her agoraphobia is to manage, she’s pulled through it—beautifully. Agorafabulous! manages to make you laugh even as she’s peeing into cereal bowls and hiding them under her bed.” (Rob Delaney )
“Agorafabulous! is laugh-out loud funny, even as it’s taking on deadly serious issues.” (Feministing.com )
“Funny and unflinchingly honest…. Benincasa discovers her gift for comedy and storytelling, and finds tranquility.” (Publishers Weekly )
“A blisteringly funny yet affecting debut memoir about a young woman’s struggle to overcome panic disorder and agoraphobia. Comedian Benincasa recounts her adolescent devolution into a ‘full-on, obsessive, cowering, trembling agoraphobe’ [who] discover[s], by accident, the healing power of stand-up comedy. Fabulously quirky and outrageous.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Hilarious. . . . With expert pacing, the stand-up comic mixes humor and poignant anecdotes from her teen, college, and young adult life. As her empowering tale makes clear, she survives and thrives (with a little help from family, friends, and Prozac).” (Booklist )
“Sara’s story of overcoming a debilitating fear is told with such honesty and hilarity that all I want to do now is hang out with her in a tiny room and not let her leave until she tells me more stories.” (Sarah Colonna, author of Life as I Blow It )
“If I ever get thrown in a mental institution, my only hope would be having Sara as a cellmate. Her funny and poignant perspective makes Agorafabulous! a stellar debut.” (Julie Klam, author of You Had Me at Woof )
“Sara’s comedy is uplifting, deeply personal, and very funny. As difficult as her agoraphobia is to manage, she’s pulled through it beautifully. Agorafabulous! manages to make you laugh even as she’s peeing into cereal bowls and hiding them under her bed.” (Rob Delaney, comedian and columnist, Vice magazine )
“With storytelling that is hilarious, honest, raw, and absurd, Agorafabulous! puts you in the body and mind of an extraordinary individual who accepts and embraces her full self.” (Baratunde Thurston, author of How to Be Black )
“Sara’s blunt and quirkily humorous take on the crippling anxiety that held her hostage in her own home will have you laughing out loud one minute and wanting to hug her the next.” (Kambri Crews, author of Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir )
“Agorafabulous! is laugh-out loud funny, even as it’s taking on deadly serious issues.” (Feministing.com )
“Funny and unflinchingly honest…. Benincasa discovers her gift for comedy and storytelling, and finds tranquility.” (Publishers Weekly )
“A blisteringly funny yet affecting debut memoir about a young woman’s struggle to overcome panic disorder and agoraphobia. Comedian Benincasa recounts her adolescent devolution into a ‘full-on, obsessive, cowering, trembling agoraphobe’ [who] discover[s], by accident, the healing power of stand-up comedy. Fabulously quirky and outrageous.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Hilarious. . . . With expert pacing, the stand-up comic mixes humor and poignant anecdotes from her teen, college, and young adult life. As her empowering tale makes clear, she survives and thrives (with a little help from family, friends, and Prozac).” (Booklist )
“Sara’s story of overcoming a debilitating fear is told with such honesty and hilarity that all I want to do now is hang out with her in a tiny room and not let her leave until she tells me more stories.” (Sarah Colonna, author of Life as I Blow It )
“If I ever get thrown in a mental institution, my only hope would be having Sara as a cellmate. Her funny and poignant perspective makes Agorafabulous! a stellar debut.” (Julie Klam, author of You Had Me at Woof )
“Sara’s comedy is uplifting, deeply personal, and very funny. As difficult as her agoraphobia is to manage, she’s pulled through it beautifully. Agorafabulous! manages to make you laugh even as she’s peeing into cereal bowls and hiding them under her bed.” (Rob Delaney, comedian and columnist, Vice magazine )
“With storytelling that is hilarious, honest, raw, and absurd, Agorafabulous! puts you in the body and mind of an extraordinary individual who accepts and embraces her full self.” (Baratunde Thurston, author of How to Be Black )
“Sara’s blunt and quirkily humorous take on the crippling anxiety that held her hostage in her own home will have you laughing out loud one minute and wanting to hug her the next.” (Kambri Crews, author of Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir )
Book Description
“I subscribe to the notion that if you can laugh at the shittiest moments in your life, you can transcend them. And if other people can laugh at your awful shit as well, then I guess you can officially call yourself a comedian.”
In Boston, a college student fears leaving her own room—even to use the toilet. In Pennsylvania, a meek personal assistant finally confronts a perpetually enraged gay spiritual guru. In Texas, a rookie high school teacher deals with her male student’s unusually, er, hard personal problem. Sara Benincasa has been that terrified student, that embattled employee, that confused teacher—and so much more. Her hilarious memoir chronicles her attempts to forge a wonderfully weird adulthood in the midst of her lifelong struggle with agoraphobia, depression, and unruly hair.
Relatable, unpretentious, and unsentimental, Agorafabulous! celebrates eccentricity, resilience, and the power of humor to light up even the darkest corners of our lives. (There are also some sexy parts, but they’re really awkward. Like really, really awkward.)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious and Honest,
By Jennifer Rayment (Bolton, ON) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom (Hardcover)
The Good StuffThe description of the history of Sicily will have you laughing your a** off A self deprecating honest look at life with a mental illness in a hopeful yet extremely hilarious way - this to me is hugely important and should be required readings for those dealing with these types of issues - things will get better no matter what Doesn't blame her illness on anyone and doesn't go go all self-pity about it - just honest, straight to the point and did I mention OMG hilarious Love the blender recipes Her stories about her trip to Sicily as a teen, her boss at the Blessed Sanctuary and her trip to Planned Parenthood will have you laughing and cringing at the same time Impressed with her bravery to come out with some very personal stories She doesn't hold back with her recovery - she makes you know it was very slow, painful and it never completely went away but she can live and most importantly laugh at it which is incredibly healthy in my humble opinion The Not So Good Stuff I had a hard time with the jump from chapter to chapter - left me a little disorientated at first (only lasts for a sec though) The many mentions of the bowl of pee grossed me out You will snort out loud on the bus and people will stare (why oh why can I not learn that reading funny/sad books on the bus is not a good idea for someone who wants to be ignored during commute) Favorite Quotes/Passages "The island was independent for, oh, six seconds, at which point the Kingdom of Aragon (not Aragorn, the foxiest dude in the Lord of the Rings) kindly stepped in." "HELLO. ARE YOU THE DOCTOR?" he asked in the loud, slow voice that Americans reserve for non-English speakers (as if screaming in a foreigner's face is going to increase his or her comprehension of our mongrel tongue.) "I imagine several generations of my father's Celtic ancestors consulted the same shaman whenever young Arthywolgen was possessed by the tree-spirits or little Domnighailag expressed an interest in Christianity," "I prayed for forgiveness, but to the Virgin Mary, not God. I figured she'd be more sympathetic to the whole unplanned pregnancy thing, especially since she and I both knew I wasn't carrying any messiah. And I'd always had a sneaking suspicion it was Joseph who knocked her up, anyway, and the Archangel Gabriel thing was a less secular version of the stork story." Who Should/Shouldn't Read Definitely not for those sensitive about religion or bodily functions- if that is you - do not pick up the book (but your world will be sadder for it) Anyone who has or is suffering from a mental illness - especially agoraphobia - this is a must Quite frankly other than those who are sensitive or serious about religion - you will get something from this (At the very least a good chuckle) 4.5 Dewey's I received this from Williman Morrow in exchange for an honest review
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews) 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspirational Black Humor at Its Finest,
By Jonathan C. Gagas - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom (Hardcover)
Sara Benincasa's memoir offers not only a major dose of levity, but also an accomplished piece of black humor. For someone with many loved ones who have battled mental illness and who's been a comedy fan since I started listening to Bill Hicks in high school, there couldn't be a better inspirational book.But this memoir ain't your grandma's inspiration: Ho no! This one skips merrily along while acknowledging, in prose that truly NOTICES Sicily and New York and the culinary oddities of the suburban northeast and the knickknacks in people's rooms, that human bodies and minds are fragile machines that creak along in the short term but can demonstrate great resilience over the long haul by drawing on whatever combinations of luck and courage are available. The voice of New Jersey's best comic writer, the early Philip Roth that the author cites as an inspiration, is in evidence here, but without the joyless-sex-fueled nihilism that came to characterize the Roth/Updike/Mailer generation. As David Foster Wallace points out in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, we middle-class post-Baby-Boomers are done with all that. Agorafabulous! says, Let's smile at our dysfunctions and bad one-night stands, grab the world by the balls, and see if we can't make other people's lives a little bit more livable by laughing hard and working harder. Hence the book foregoes both self-indulgent anger and wordplay for its own sake in favor of relatable techniques like a table of phobias, smoothie recipes, and zany anachronisms. Acrobatic obscenities meet "the reincarnated souls of Spanish inquisitors, Nazi commandants, and medieval Chinese proto-waterboarders," for example, all in the service of satirizing high-school cliquishness. While the abrupt ending left me wanting more, further reflection indicates that Benincasa's comparison of herself to a taxi driver in denial about his panic attacks asks readers to consider how, in a political climate obsessed with cutting public services, we can extend the necessary support networks to those not lucky enough to have the kinds of families that provide them. This memoir earns its optimism (and its title's exclamation point, even!) because each chapter's scrupulous attention to detail, whether the urine and blood of the book's lows or the euphoric creativity of its highs, never lets us forget the contingency of every situation. The humor in Agorafabulous! comes from the kind of cynicism that cannibalizes itself into admitting that Hey, sometimes with a wacky religious mantra and a stuffed animal in tow, you make it through. A marvelous, punchy read! 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
profound yet jocular memoir,
By Harriet Klausner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom (Hardcover)
Sara Benincasa says her first recognized panic attack occurred when she was eleven. As a teen, she became the centerfold for antidepressants and anti-anxiety drug usage. Still she matriculates at Emerson College until she cannot journey from her bedroom to the bathroom to pee. Her parents welcome her back to their New Jersey nest. She sees a psychiatrist and obtains new drugs. Sara slowly readapts to the world with stops in Asheville, Texas and finally New York; a place in which the majority of the population are crazier than she is.This is profound yet jocular memoir that pulls no punches when Ms. Benincasa provides her avoidance techniques to never leave a safe bedroom such as pissing into a breakfast bowl. With help from her family and friends, she found some healing knowing they cared for her and tried the myriad of self-help guru books that never quite got her off the ledge. However, she found her muse in stand-up comedy in which she uses her agoraphobia incidents as a humorous healer. Mindful of "Make 'em Laugh" from Singin' In The rain, her credo is "that if you can laugh at the shittiest moments in your life, you can transcend them" and do almost anything. This includes using a bathroom and walking on a stage to get the audience to "laugh at your awful shit ..., you can officially call yourself a comedian" and a super self-help author. Harriet Klausner 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is what a feminist writes like.,
By Emigh Cannaday - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom (Hardcover)
I read this in two sittings and laughed aloud quite a bit, especially in the second half of this book. I love that Sara's writing style is so easy to synch up with. It flows naturally. It's intimate. But rather than just basing my rating on sheer entertainment value, her memoir helped open my eyes to what life is like for people living with mental illness (and actively dealing with it).Mushroom-induced dorm escapades and wagers involving Viagra aside, the fact that she had the strength to reach out for help was what touched my core the most. I've never met her folks, but I admire them tremendously for the role they played in her life. You can feel the love through her words. You know that they want her to thrive, not just survive. Sara is blessed to have a support system of true friends and a loving family, without which I think recovery may not have been entirely possible. Along with her personal strength, I applaud her for advocating proper medication and self care while never coming off as preachy. Instead, she allows her transformation to speak for itself; from hiding in her bed in her danky apartment to finally basking in the spotlight in front of hundreds of people. Hats off to Sara Benincasa! |
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